Lotus
by XrhiaX
Summary: Long ago, Princess Asuka, Prince Iroh's wife, gave birth to her second child. Due to unexpected marks on the infant girl, Iroh learnt she was in danger, and placed the lost heir with the sun-tribe chief, but destiny has a way of finding its subjects. ZxK
1. Prologue

Lu Ten drummed his fingers on the golden-embellished, dark wood table before the chaise lounge, a small ten-year-old boy, with his intelligent golden eyes trained on the door opposite him, as if he were trying to will it open. "I don't get it. My mom's in there, and my dad's in there. Why can't I go in?" he tilted his head in curiosity, his voice hinting at indignant confusion.

Young Prince Ozai, who despite popular misconception, liked children, was sat next to his nephew, with his princess bride, Ursa at his side, their nine-month-old son in her arms. "There are a lot of things in there you probably will not want to see. It's for your own protection." The young prince told his nephew, before giving a dirty kind of smirk that his wife batted him on the arm for.

"Ozai." She warned, as she bit back a laugh. Her husband was young, yes, but he was a father now and fathers didn't make jokes like that; especially Princes and possible heirs to thrones. She wondered if Ozai would ever realize that being a father meant he had to grow up.

"What?"

"Hey, Uncle Ozai." Lu Ten frowned as if in very important thought, perhaps figuring out how to rule the world with a toilet brush. He had an active imagination that often ran away with him, and it had been the reason he and his friend Mushi had spent yesterday running around with blankets and playing 'Catch The Avatar', a popular children's game where you tried to catch your opponent in a 'net' while they tried to catch you. It involved a lot of hiding and ambushing.

"Yes." Ozai answered calmly, stately, also eyeing the door into his brother's quarters where muffled yelling was seeping out.

"I don't think Grandpa likes my mom." Lu Ten gave a disappointed sigh. "I don't know why. Do you?" the little boy turned his head to look at his uncle, and in the background, his Aunt. His eyes settled on his cousin, Zuko, and he involuntarily gave a tiny smile. The infant was staring at Lu Ten with a kind of curiosity no child had ever matched, except of course, Lu Ten himself, with his questions.

Ursa gave her husband a grave look, bouncing her well-dressed son on her knee. Beyond the little boy's knowledge, his mother had once been a commoner that Prince Iroh had become enchanted with. Princess Asuka, who Ursa's daughter would later be named after, had been little more than a farmer's daughter, though now was the subject of a bedtime story told throughout the nation of the common girl who helped an injured, traveling prince back to health and would then become Fire Lady. Little girls loved the story.

Inside Prince Iroh's quarters, he held his swaddled newborn daughter with a proud, downward-directed smile at her. He held the baby carefully, and looked up as the midwives, three of them, tended to his wife. He stepped toward her with the child in his arms. "Asuka." He voiced her name calmly, his eyes carefully settled on hers. "Look at our beautiful daughter." He felt a lump of happiness in his throat.

She gave a low moan of discomfort. "She's lovely." She managed, raising a hand and touching the white swaddling. She pushed the swaddling down to free the infant's arms; she didn't particularly like the traditional practice of swaddling. Iroh used a lone pinky to help the infant's arms from the cloth, and what he saw nearly made him drop the child.

A pink lotus was marked in the child's tiny palm, with black vines squirming up and around her middle finger like a ring, meeting between the fingers, more vines passing the space between her thumb and forefinger, and on the other side of her hand, then following up her arm on both sides. The black vines were home to green leaves painted as if in parchment. It was as if she were tattooed. The same marks were on her other arm and hand, and Iroh suspected they went down her spine too, and down her legs. Another lotus was found at the base of her neck.

"I'm sure I don't understand." Iroh held his daughter up again, his hand supporting her small head. His eyes trained on his wife again.

Asuka looked into her husband's golden eyes, also confused. She suddenly gave a groan of pain and fell to the bed. Her shaky hands clutched her middle and she squeezed her eyes shut, exclaiming out grunts and groans of agony. Her fingers twisted knots into the fabric of her nightgown and she tugged her knees up as if to press on the pain splitting through her body.

"Asuka!" Iroh yelled. He looked to the midwives. Two were running toward his wife in alarm, and another was heading for the door as a brisk pace. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the vial in her hand. The thick, heavy curtains split apart and the midwife grabbed the door and pulled it open through the drapes. Outside the door, Prince Ozai, Princess Ursa and the two little princes were sat on the lounge before the door.

The midwife did a double take, before darting to one side, away. She was a royal midwife; nobody questioned her pace for the possibility she was going to get something for the struggling princess. The guards that flanked the chaise lounge merely exchanged glances of suspicion, readying themselves to chase her.

"Stop her!" Iroh raced to the door as fast as he could with his child in his arms.

As the guards tripped over one another in their heavy, lavish armor; the stuff Fire Lord Azulon insisted on, the old fool, both Princes Ozai and Lu Ten jumped to their feet and took off after the woman with the vial of amber liquid. As he ran, Ozai caught sight of his nephew's hard-set face as he darted after the woman. The child was fast, and keeping up with the older prince, who was beginning to feel his age of twenty-six had become forty-six.

Ozai grabbed hold of the woman's arm and skidded to a halt, forcing her against a wall and pulling her hands behind her back as she struggled. He looked across the embellished walls for something to secure her wrists, but couldn't find anything.

"Here you go, Uncle Ozai!" Lu Ten grinned, self-pleased, removing the black ribbon of his thick topknot. His hair fell to his shoulders as she outstretched the ribbon to his uncle.

Ozai couldn't help but smile at the boy as he bound the woman's wrists and herded her toward the guards. Somewhere a ways off, Ozai heard his brother weeping for his wife, and Lu Ten took off from his side after the sobs.

* * *

><p>Ozai paced back and forth as his brother sat on his bed, leant forward on his knees, his head in his hands. Fire Lord Azulon was unimpressed with the happenings of the past four hours, and soon they knew they would both be called into his throne room. The death of Princess Asuka had managed to escape the palace, and the arrest of the assassin. They had released a statement to the people, but the question the world now asked; had the child been born before her mother's death?<p>

Every four seconds, Prince Ozai would peer into the crib in which his niece lay moaning for food, thin from not having had nourishment since the womb, and paler than was noble. The maids were taking Zuko for a stroll through the gardens before naptime; it seemed to make him drowsy, and so his crib was available. She had a thin coat of midnight black hair on her head, and golden eyes that followed her uncle as if waiting for him to feed her. He would only look for a second, trying to sum up the markings on her arms. She was no longer swaddled, and had been draped by a baby blanket, but had pushed it away so it only covered her from the waist down.

"Could she be the Avatar?" Ozai thought aloud, after hours of silence between brothers.

"Perhaps, though it is unlikely; the previous avatar, Roku, was of the Fire Nation. The next was of the Air Nomads, and _if_ our _genocide _killed him, then the avatar would be Water Tribe, and still have another to go before the cycle returns to our nation." Iroh thought aloud bitterly.

Ozai gave a small grunt of displeasure. "To call the actions our ancestors such a thing is less than noble of you, brother."

"Forgive me, my mind seems to be mixed up with the drama and tragedies of the day. The words of the assassin are still running amok in my head." He removed his face from his hands and looked up to his brother. "One cannot help but speculate whether she tells the truth."

Ozai just grunted again.

"Would you put it below Azulon to have my wife murdered?" Iroh bellowed harshly. "She was simple commoner trash as far as he is concerned." He growled out brokenly.

Ozai looked down to his niece again, this time not glancing away. "Do not raise your voice to me. I am not your enemy." He reached for the infant to turn her arm, so as to see if the markings were on the other side.

The infant gripped his pinky in both tiny hands. She struggled to keep it in her grip, but she eventually managed to get it into her mouth, hoping that some kind of nourishment would come from it. Ozai managed a tiny smile. He looked up at the sound of his brother's voice, leaving his pinky to the child. "I must decide what to do with her." Iroh was looking at the crib. "Her destiny is entwined with the spirits."

"Unless she is fed soon, no destiny will come of her." Ozai exhaled thoughtfully, using one of the free fingers on the hand in her possession to touch the child's soft cheek.

"You're right." Iroh stood up, and still had to look up to his brother. It had once bothered him how Ozai, younger than him by ten years, just as Lu Ten and Zuko, was taller than him, but now it was just a thing like any other, that Iroh found amusing. "But we cannot risk anyone else knowing of her existence."

"Ursa. My wife would gladly donate food to the child." Ozai widened his eyes in thought. Why had he not thought of it yet? His chest puffed a little at his wonderful idea.

"That is a good idea. I will send for her." Iroh nodded, approaching the crib and looking at his daughter. He smiled briefly at the sight of her hungrily sucking on her uncle's pinky. "I would have liked for her to befriend your son." He thought aloud.

There was a knock on the door that awoke both princes up and startled the child, though she didn't cry. She just gripped her uncle's pinky a little tighter and raised her eyebrows. Iroh went to the door and opened it. Ursa swept in with an armful of scrolls, not bothering to ask Iroh for permission to enter.

"I researched what you asked." She looked tiredly around. "The great library, there was nothing at all on such things. The closest I found was the origin of Airbender ritual tattoos." She gave her brother-in-law a grave look. "But I took the liberty of visiting the dragon bone catacombs. I found these scrolls." She emptied her arms to let the scrolls fall to the lavish red sheets. "I'm still unsure whether it is a curse or a blessing."

"Whether _what _is a curse or blessing? What is happening to my child?" Iroh snapped sharply.

"Three hundred years ago, a similar thing happened in the Earth Kingdom; a child was born with sand roses on his palms, hands and feet, and their thorny vines across his limbs. He was deemed to be able to draw power the same way as the original Earthbenders; the badger-moles. I took the liberty of doing some more research and it links up to the history of the zephyr child."

Ozai turned his head to listen. Iroh nodded thoughtfully. "The boy born with hurricane symbols and air currents marked on his body." He spoke wistfully.

"Hold your ostrich-horses; do you mean to say this infant will be able to bend like a _dragon_?" Ozai looked to his brother in astonishment.

Iroh gave a curt nod.

"But why call it a zephyr child? Why not a typhoon bender, or an Air-man or -woman? Surely such power deserves a name more fitting than 'child'!"

Iroh looked to his sister-in-law.

Ursa frowned. "The power consumed both boys on their twentieth birthdays. They entered a state not unlike the avatar state and tore themselves apart with their own elements."

* * *

><p>Prince Iroh had had but one request to the sun-tribe chief, whose young bride had not wanted to take in the child, though the chief himself, had seen something extraordinary in the lotus markings on her body. Iroh had wanted the baby's name to be Ryah, half for Ryu, the spirit dragon, and half for his mother, Ilah. The chief had agreed, though he called the girl 'Blossom' from time to time, as a fatherly pet name. Zuma, who could not produce children herself, had hated the girl.<p>

As far as she knew, this outsider child would take _her _place as leader of the tribe after chief Akirou took his place among the spirits.

Ryah, the forgotten princess, grew to become healthy, strong and slender, her main attribute her bending, and her unfailing accuracy. In her spare time, she had hunted with bow and arrow, alone, until Akirou had protectively prohibited her from leaving the forgotten city without a bodyguard. Her relationship with Akirou took a turn for the worse, and things deteriorated from there.

By age thirteen, she knew she was different by the way the other girls in her study sessions looked at her.

Their eyes were harsh, unforgiving, and hateful.

The study sessions hadn't been enough for Ryah. The others learnt by listening to tales told by the elders, but Ryah had begged until her adoptive father had given in and allowed her access to the vast libraries under the great golden ruins of their people. No sooner had she been given this right to knowledge than had she begun to research herself, and other children like her. She found nothing.

From that day, Ryah had been Zen. She hadn't taken one side or another in an argument, or looked at an object or situation from one side alone. She had been the wise observer, who solved problems created by closed-mindedness. Still, the other girls had never liked her. She thought once it was because of her marks, or because of her place ascending to lead their people.

Ryah flickered fire like a snake between her fingers in boredom; perhaps that was another reason the girls hated her; she was a master firebender at age thirteen, as Akirou himself, and the elders had taught her from the age of five to the age of eight. Afterwards, she had been allowed to train with a young dragon Akirou had given her as her tenth birthday present. A hazy purple flying serpent she had named 'Mizu'. The name had just seemed to fit.

A thirteen-year-old Ryah, with porcelain skin, midnight black hair to her waist and golden eyes, longed to hunt alone again, whether or not it would further strain her relationship with her father. With a bow and arrow on her back, and twine sandals on her feet, she made a hasty escape from their civilization and marched through the jungle, eyes scanning the wilderness for her prey. Her favorite meat was boarcupine, scorched and slow-roasted on an open flame. Maybe she could get one of those, bring it back and have her only friend, a quiet woman who had joined them three years prior, running from something, roast it the way she liked it.

Ryah grabbed hold of a tree and hoisted herself up to a lower branch. Once firmly settled atop it, she climbed to the next, and the next, until she was high enough that a boarcupine wouldn't see her, as they had trouble looking up. She drew out her bow and an arrow, slid them into position and waited. In silence, she awaited her prey to wander into her view. An hour passed.

She was beginning to drift to sleep when she heard a twig snap. She jerked her head up and peered into the clearing below the tree. A wolflion was stalking into the clearing, hunting for something, just as Ryah was. She drew back her arrow again and aimed for its neck, narrowing her eyes at the beast. She released her arrow, and it sped through the air in a straight line, before piercing through the animal's shoulder and taking it to the ground.

"Yes!" Ryah whispered happily, putting her bow back into the holster on her back. She gripped the branch below her and slid down to the ground with a crunching of leaves. She took four cautious steps toward her kill, picking up a stick on the ground as she moved. She prodded the fallen animal in the undercarriage. With a vicious snarl, the wolflion leapt to life, up on its hind feet with claws bared, teeth showing and an arrow sticking out of its side. "Ah!" Ryah yelled, falling back in surprise.

The animal dropped back onto its front feet and took two ill-intentioned steps toward Ryah. Ryah pushed at the ground with her feet, moving backwards, away from it. The wolflion raised one claw and tilted its head up to the sky, howling to the high sun that it had made a kill. Wolflions were mainly fire nation beasts, known for their fondness of the sun the way a polar wolf was known for its fondness of the moon. Ryah froze in terror, tears welling up in her eyes. She was going to die at the young age of thirteen.

A paranormal explosion of earth threw the beast into the air several feet, allowing it to flip onto its back and break its neck as it landed back on the ground. It let out a cry of agony, before it fell into darkness. Ryah realized she was panting, sweating to the point that her thick gold armbands were beginning to slide down her arms. She steadied her breaths at the sight of the dead animal.

"Are you alright?" someone called out, and Ryah could make out a boy her age running toward her. He was wearing a green and black tunic with full-length trousers the same green. He was from the earth kingdom; it was undisputable. He had a medium complexion that matched her studies of Airbenders, and had a head of short brown hair.

Ryah nodded, standing and dusting herself off. "Did you do that?" she asked carefully. "Are you an earthbender?"

The boy nodded. "Yup. I'm Nikko." He put his hand out for her to shake. "At your service. Whoa! Cool tattoos!" he pointed at her arm.

"I'm Ryah." She smiled thankfully, taking and shaking his hand. Nobody had ever said her marks were cool before. "What are you doing out here?"

"What do you mean? I live out here! Come on, I'll show you!" he grabbed the hand she was using to shake his and began running away from her, with her dragged along.

Ryah followed him through the brush and greens to an old redwood tree with a wooden tree house twenty feet up, a rope ladder trailing down the tree. She stared up in awe at it. How could someone his size have built such a great tree house? Her men barely managed to put up a tree-situated hunting ledge, all working together.

"You built that?" she gasped in amazement. "On your own?"

Nikko grinned proudly. "I built it on the ground and then I used my earthbending to get it up into the tree. Come on, I've got tea and jerky." He offered, moving toward the rope ladder. "I even managed to make some sushi with the fish in this lake a few miles away."

Ryah's stomach growled at the thought of jerky, but she politely refused. "No thanks. So … what, your parents live up there with you?" she asked curiously.

Nikko turned around and shook his head solemnly. "No. I ran away from home and just … set up here. It's easier, you know? Without people telling you what to do and making fun of you …"

"Why did people make fun of you?" Ryah tilted her head in confusion.

Nikko pushed up his sleeves and held his hands out to her with a distressed look on his face. Ryah's eyes widened; the boy had marks on his arms just the same as her! Not the same marks, but panda lilies on his hands, with the same black and green vines climbing both sides of his arm. Nikko pulled a face. "I was born with these stupid flowers on me! They called me 'flower boy'!" He scoffed angrily.

Ryah held out her arms. "These aren't tattoos. I was born with these just like you." She smiled happily. "The other girls call me all sorts of weird names because of them, but I like them. Lotuses." She turned her hands and looked into her palms proudly.

Nikko felt a little better. "Where do _you _live?"

Ryah made a face. "I live in the sun-tribe. I don't think you know about us, though."

"Sure I do. You guys hunt me all the time!" Nikko chirped honestly.

Ryah laughed and took another look at Nikko, who had light grey eyes that seemed to be inspecting her the same.

She could see this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

><p>"Uncle." A fourteen-year-old Zuko walked into his uncle's chambers on his war ship. He looked over his shoulder and saw his uncle shirtless, looking for a clean undershirt to go beneath his robes and armor. He assumed his uncle had just had a much-needed wash. He turned back to the desk and looked over the map on it. "We've checked all the air temples. Its time we move to the water tribes to find the avatar." He insisted thoughtfully.<p>

"You may be right, Nephew." Iroh stood straight and abandoned the search for a clean undershirt, walking toward his nephew at the desk. "And perhaps you could try a delicacy of the water tribes; _blubbered seal jerky._" He suggested amiably.

"That sounds disgusting." Zuko answered sharply, his eyes jumping to the mark on his uncle's upper arm, usually hidden by his robes. A white lotus flower. "What is that?" he peered at it.

Iroh looked at his own arm, and then to his nephew with a short frown. "It is a tattoo." He answered plainly.

"Why do you have a tattoo?" Zuko raised his good eyebrow.

"Because young men do strange things under the influence of good rice wine." Iroh replied bluntly. He recalled that night, the night after he had given Ryah to Akirou. He had been drunk, his brother had been drinking with him, and they had had the court body artist complete an elaborate lotus flower on Iroh's arm, and for some reason, Ursa's name on one cheek of Ozai's flank, but that was another story.

Zuko wasn't buying his uncle's simplicity. He was never this cold in conversation. "Lotuses are important to you." He stated simply.

"Yes."

"May I ask why?" he requested as politely as he could.

Iroh looked away. "Perhaps when you are older."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: this is just the prologue of an idea that has sat in my head for a few months now. Everyone's done a fic where something different happened at the western air temple, so I wanted to do something like that. Review for the next chapter!**


	2. Hands Of Fate

Nikko lay on his back in the open grass plains he spend his days in, his hands tucked under his head and his friend's head beside his, though her body was laid down in the opposite direction. "You know what I don't understand?" the sixteen-year-old asked rhetorically.

Ryah's eyes inspected the clouds. "What don't you understand?" she queried in distraction, the clouds in the sky forming shapes in her mind that reminded her of a long forgotten dream. She had been eleven, before she'd met Nikko. She'd been alone in the dark, the huge dragons Ran and Shao circling her, whispering to her. She couldn't remember what they'd said, but she knew they had told her she needed to talk to someone important.

"How I'm a nomad, literally, like the Airbenders, but I'm an earthbender. They're opposites. I don't see how I can grasp the idea of Zen with the stubbornness earthbenders have historically employed. I mean, I can be a little hardheaded myself, but I'm a pretty open-minded guy. Aren't I?" he frowned thoughtfully.

"You're extremely open-minded, Nikko. Look at me; I'm a firebender, and my best friend is from the earth kingdom. That's pretty contrary to common knowledge too." She pointed out intelligently.

Nikko continued to stare into the sky, lying back on the grassy hills they lounged on most of the time. Ryah hadn't told anyone about Nikko, and Nikko hadn't exposed himself to the sun-tribe. Things just worked better that way. "You make a good point." He acknowledged.

"Yup." Ryah sighed, watching the clouds against the bright blue sky. "Hey, have you any idea how big a coincidence it is that we came together with our markings and our understanding of Zen, in the middle of a forest simply because I was dumb enough to try to take on a wolflion?"

"It wasn't a coincidence. My parents used to say my destiny was among those of the Avatars', because of my marks, and the fact that I learnt my earthbending from the badgermoles on my parents' plantation. It was a bunch of idiotic ramblings that they'd taken from some crazy fortuneteller, but maybe the spirits really are following me to some degree; I mean, I survived in the forest on my own, I learnt earthbending on my own, I built a tree house despite that I'd never done any carpentry before … and somehow, fate brought us to the same place at the same time." He rambled on thoughtfully, making points that Ryah agreed with continuously.

"I learnt my bending from Mizu. I couldn't grasp my teachers' forms until I did my coming of age ceremony with Ran and Shao. I did it when I was eight, even though I was supposed to do it when I was twelve, because my dad wanted me to bend. It was a long shot, but it worked. They gave me Mizu as an egg for my tenth birthday, and it took me _three years _to master my bending. Most firebenders take more than a decade to reach mastery."

"Stop fanning your own flame." Nikko scoffed, rolling his eyes with a term he'd learnt from Ryah herself.

Ryah opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a loud bugle being sounded from the tribe. She suddenly sat up and looked out to her golden city. "Oh, no." she whispered, clambering to her feet. Her black, flank-reaching ponytail was swept aside by the wind as she got up. "That can't be good."

Nikko stood up, displaying rigid muscles on the arms now shown by a tunic with ripped-off sleeves, and only knee-length capris that same forest green. "What does that mean? That bugle?" he approached her side and looked out over the breathtaking city. He was taller than her by at least six inches, and his short brown hair had grown to a shoulder-length ponytail, low at the base of his head. His light gray eyes had darkened with age. His marks were even more prominent, just as hers were.

"That's the meeting bugle. It's only sounded when someone's hurt, or the someone's had a message from the spirits." She grimaced, beginning to walk down the hill, with Nikko not far behind her.

"Ah. So the spirits don't often bear _good _news, then." Nikko noted dryly.

"The last one was the threat of death. The spirits birthed four stillborn infants before they were viable." Ryah frowned, her brows coming down hard as she marched briskly toward her civilization. "This is bad."

Nikko nodded thoughtfully. "Your people talk to the spirits a lot?" he asked, feigning belief.

Ryah looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you making fun of my beliefs?"

"No, no, not at all-,"

"Because if you are, I'll burn you to a crisp. Not all us sun-people are eternally forgiving." She warned him.

"I'm not, okay?" Nikko decided against this topic. "Anyway, what could go wrong right now? You said there were no pregnant women right now just the other day."

"Plenty could go wrong; drought, plague, flood, evil spirit beast (haven't had that one in a while!) …" she trailed off, biting her lip. "I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

* * *

><p>"Father. What's going on? Who called the meeting?" Ryah approached her father, standing before the large crowd of their people, as the village elder performed the opening ceremony to their meetings.<p>

"You could just listen to the announcement like everyone else," Akirou's advisor, Ham Gao, hissed.

"Silence." Akirou glanced to the man, before addressing Ryah. "A friend of the tribe has come to us in the worst of circumstances. He is injured. Elder Mako is performing a healing session with the herbs we have gathered, though not much can be done. His companion asked us to inform the tribe of his presence, so he may gather a party to move him to a nearby place of final resting."

Ryah's brows went up. "This man; you're just going to let him die? I read that waterbenders can heal, if he got to the swamp tribe he could-,"

"Nothing can be done."

"Well, not if you don't _try._" Ryah snapped quietly.

Akirou looked to his daughter with narrowed eyes. "Don't hold that tone to me. I may be aging, though I am still your chief. And your father, might I add."

Ryah frowned again. He always referred to himself first as her chief, then as her father. She didn't know why. "The man is going to die, father, if we do nothing." Ryah looked aside and thought for a moment. The man's friend had also given up on him. "Where is this _companion_? I want to speak to him." She glanced adamantly at Akirou.

"You are not yet leader of our people, Ryah. I have decreed we will respect the man's companion's wishes." Akirou put his hand on Ryah's shoulder and gave a brief smile. "I understand you lean toward the saving of lives, but to preserve this man's life would only bring around suffering."

"You don't know that!" Ryah hissed. "For all you know he could just need a quick splash of water and a healer to be right as rain."

Akirou frowned hard, angry with her, she thought. "We have no waterbenders here, Ryah. The man would not survive the journey to either pole or to our sister tribe in the swamps of the _southern hemisphere_. And healers have diminished in the south; there are no more benders at the southern pole _at all_."

"But we're only _days _from the North Pole." Ryah insisted; she'd read about the travels of the mainland firebenders to the poles, before the war. There had once been peaceful travels, under the rule of Firelord Ukuza, before Sozin's time. Ukuza had traveled to the poles with the usual shipments of vegetables and food from warmer parts of the world, and had been friends with many water tribe dignitaries that would later suffer at the hands of his son.

"Weeks, Ryah. Three weeks it would take with our simple riverboats, many would die, more would fall ill to pneumonia. It is a pointless trip for _one _life to be saved." Akirou shut his eyes before smiling weakly at her. "None would be happier than I to see this man live, for I have known him longer than I you. The best that can be done is to make him comfortable. His companion is seeing to that. If you wish to help this man, pray for him."

Ryah stared at her father in disbelief for a moment. This man was a friend of their people; not many were welcomed into their humble civilization. He had to be well looked on by the dragons to stay here without opposition. "The dragons." She whispered, before frowning hard. She'd read Mako's inscriptions; he was one of the few here who read and wrote. Mako, years before she'd been born, had written about the prince and his men who had come to slay the final two dragons, and met the young chief Akirou, who had taught him all of their beliefs about the dragons, and the teachings of the wonderful beasts.

The prince had left and claimed to have killed the beasts, protecting them from any other dragon slayers who might wish for the title of 'the dragon of the west'. Nothing else had been written on the prince after that. She wondered how Akirou had kept friendship with a man he'd met once for two weeks, twenty odd years ago.

"Father, is this man the dragon prince from Mako's inscriptions?"

Akirou shut his brown eyes again and nodded briefly. "Yes."

"Then the dragons would show mercy to him." Ryah frowned at her father suddenly. "Why aren't you readying a sacrifice to Ran and Shao?" she tilted her head suspiciously.

Akirou didn't answer.

"Father." She added, reaching out and touching his arm.

"Your mother has prepared a meal for you. I suggest you go eat." He glanced at her apprehensively.

Ryah glared at him for a moment, before turning on her bare heel and walking away from him with her face screwed up in anger. How could a man she'd trusted her whole life just be allowing a man to die?

* * *

><p>Ryah was meditating atop the grassy hill, with a flame in her palm breathing with her; her hands held together in her lap, with the flame hovering above them. She had to detach herself; she wasn't usually this concerned with other people's problems. Could she really blame herself, though? They were simply going to allow a man to die; a man that could be saved. Maybe there was some way a healer could be brought to them. If a lone tribal dignitary traveled to the North Pole and brought back a healer … she stopped herself; maybe her father was right. To risk one of their own for an outsider was foolish.<p>

Still.

Her meditation was interrupted when a loud cry echoed back from the city. Her eyes snapped open and the flame in her hands diminished. "Nikko," she whispered to herself. He was constantly challenging the booby traps of their ancient civilization. He somehow managed to escape them most times, probably using earthbending, but the few times he'd been a bit … _stuck, _he'd called for Ryah; nearly getting found out by her people in the process.

_This _particular cry was exactly like Nikko's cry last time; when he'd been suspended over a pond of fire-frogs by a splitting vine.

"For the love of Agni." She grumbled and stood up.

* * *

><p>"Nikko!" Ryah called out, walking carefully around the quieter parts of the city with a flame on her palm held high as she looked around, the warm summer breeze taking her hair aside as she searched for him. "Nikko, I told you to stay out of the city!" she added in exasperation. She suddenly heard a whisper and stiffened. Who would Nikko be whispering to out here in the middle of the city? The only friend he had in the world was her. "Nikko?" she asked into the darkness, this time quieter.<p>

"HELP!"

"Shut up!"

Ryah's head snapped in the direction of the voices. "Hello?" she asked, with a gulp.

"Down here!"

The girl glanced across the floor and caught sight of something predominantly darker than the cream-colored stones of the ancient city, a few feet away from her. She took a few precautionary steps toward the black blob, the fire in her palm getting smaller in her palm with her unsettlement. The two faces in the black snapped toward her and both watched her hopefully. There were two boys glued to the grate in the ground by the green adhesive that the warriors often set down on the jungle floor to catch unwitting animals.

"Wow, big-mouth, you got us saved." The dark-haired one with a scar glanced as best he could to the bald one with the arrow on his forehead.

"Hey! Can you get us out of here?" the bald one called to her. They couldn't get a good look at her for the goo sticking their heads up to the sky, but they were aware that someone was there, none-the-less.

Ryah's flame faltered as she stared. Why were they here? Who were they? Had Akirou's 'friend' led them to their civilization? She frowned suddenly, her flame disappearing and what little smoke it had made blowing away on the night air. Her golden eyes fixed on those of the scarred boy; on his own gold orbs. They were strangely familiar. '_Well, of course. They're exactly like yours', _She thought to herself. She was lucky if she saw her own reflection once a day in the lakes and puddles and ponds between her civilization and that of her earthbending jungle-friend, but she recognized her own eyes.

'_I should go' _she heard her own voice in her head. _'I should tell father about them, while they're still trapped. They could be dangerous.'_

Ryah turned slowly and began to run away. She needed to get Akirou, or Ham Gao, his advisor, and a band of warriors, perhaps, to restrain them should they be volatile. She argued with herself; the bald one seemed friendly enough, and even the skeptic one with a scar seemed somewhat amiable. Then again, they had intruded on their city, and attempted to steal the golden dragon egg from its pedestal in the temple of the dragon dance. They couldn't be very smart.

Running and looking down wasn't a very good idea. She smacked right into a familiar body; that of Akirou. She stumbled back and regained herself, looking up and smiling sheepishly at her father. She was going to be in trouble; she was supposed to be in her bedroom by sundown.

"Ryah. What are you doing out at this hour?" he frowned at her.

Ryah swallowed in thought. "Well … uh, I heard some … voices. And I was actually just on my way to get you." She put her hands together in front of her and wrung them in one another. She was rarely this awkward; except when she knew she was in trouble.

Akirou frowned. "Voices." He murmured in thought. "Did you investigate?"

Ryah raised her brows in surprise; she wasn't supposed to investigate, she was supposed to stay safe. "Uhm … yeah, kind of. There are two outsiders stuck in the temple of the dragon dance. If that's what you mean …" she felt her throat dry for some reason.

"Alright. Go and fetch a party of four, tell them to bring two anteater-sloths." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And then straight to bed."

Ryah made a face and nodded. "Yes, father." She breathed, before moving to walk past him. He put his arm out to stop her and gave a sigh.

"And please do not stop into Mako's hut as you usually do."

She shut her eyes and nodded. "Yes, father." She managed reluctantly.

* * *

><p>Ryah had trouble sleeping that night. She lay on her bed in the light summer linens that only her family and the religious officials of their people were awarded, staring through the vine-ridden holes in the roof, through to the sky. The friendly one, the bald one, had had arrows on his hands that she hadn't noticed until afterwards, thinking back, and an arrow on his forehead; only awarded to master Airbenders. What was an Airbender doing all the way out here? She cut her own train of thought off; the western air temple wasn't all that far away; perhaps three days hiking. But they were supposed to be extinct.<p>

Then again, if any Airbenders had known the fire nation would attack, wouldn't they have tried to escape? What if he was the descendant of an escaped air nomad?

She shut her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She ended up thinking on Akirou's friend, the one they dubbed dead and buried long before he had expired. If only a healer were nearby, then the man could live. Ryah cursed herself; she didn't even know if her thoughts were correct, for she didn't know how bad the man's illness, or injuries were. Why did she always have to do what Akirou said?

When Ryah opened her eyes, she was surprised to realize she'd fallen asleep, and dawn was approaching with its pink and orange lights shining through the roof. She sat up and stared out the window at the neon pink sky with a tired smile. There was something pleasant about the sunrise she couldn't quite put her finger on. Strangely, for a firebender, she felt the same about the sunset. Ryah kicked her feet out of the bed and onto the cool stone floors, pushing away her linens and standing up.

Downstairs, she could hear her father speaking with his wife. Zuma sounded more excited than usual; she was jumpy anyway, but sometimes she would get as close to 'happy' as someone like her could get. She wasn't a stoic kind of woman, just critical. She was mean-spirited. She taught the younger mothers of the tribe how to cook sometimes, and sew and stuff, all the while criticizing the ones who were pregnant and unmarried, or the ones who stood up to their husbands. She was a traditionalist.

It was normal practice in their tribe for a man to have multiple wives, perhaps to do with the fact that more girls were born than boys in their civilization. Zuma was actually _bothered _by the fact that she was Akirou's only flare. People often called their partners their 'flares' around here. It was something equivalent to how she'd read that in the Northern Water tribe they called partners their snowflakes, except less endearing.

Ryah descended the flight of stone steps to see Akirou and Zuma sitting at a short table, with a young man she'd seen before with the other hunters. She greeted them politely and sat beside her father. "Good morning, father. Good morning, mother." She smiled nervously at the stranger. "Hello."

Akirou smiled too. "Good morning, blossom. This is Hiroshi. Hiroshi, my daughter, Ryah."

Ryah offered a hand to shake, and he took it politely, lifting it and placing a kiss on the back of it. "A pleasure." He spoke charmingly, forcing her to bite back a girlish giggle. She glanced back to her father with a bright expression.

"Is there a hunt today?" she asked hopefully.

Akirou was perhaps a protective man, and indeed a selfish one, but stupid he was not. He understood that Ryah would most likely comply with anything to go hunting; even a bodyguard, after six months of no hunting whatsoever as punishment for last time. And all he really wanted, so far, was for her to get to know Hiroshi, so that the news would be a little less shocking when he told her. He knew his daughter, even if he wasn't very good at expressing it.

Plus, this got her as far as possible from Prince Zuko during his and the Avatar's trial with the great masters, and cut the risks of her true heritage becoming known. It was best, you see, for her and Iroh and Zuko to be at three separate points today. And as soon Iroh was dead and buried, the risk of him losing his only daughter would be gone.

"No, there's a men-only ritual today, so I have appointed Hiroshi to take you hunting." He explained calmly. "Your mother and the other women will be crafting some new clothes in the city, if you'd rather do that, though."

Ryah rolled her eyes. "As if." She paused at Akirou's dark glare and dropped the casualness in her voice. "I uh … I'd prefer to go with Hiroshi." She smiled nervously.

"Alright, then." Akirou nodded, stood and looked to his wife. "We will return at sundown, my sweet flare." He reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. He stalked to the door, turned and bowed, before leaving.

Zuma blinked at Ryah, who was discreetly glancing at Hiroshi. This in turn caused her to scrutinize her adoptive daughter's husband-to-be. Unlike the religious officials, he had no shaven head, but tanned skin and a topknot, just as the other hunters did, though some strands were free and pushed behind his ears. He had dark brown eyes and light brown hair, wore a black tunic and maroon knee-pants with the same gladiator sandals as everyone else in their tribe. Mako made the shoes out of boarcupine leather, in every size.

Hiroshi was muscular, taller than Ryah by about a foot, and was one of the best swordsmen in the tribe. A sparse line of facial hair came along his jaw line and over his mouth.

"Alright, I'm going to go get my bow and arrows, and we can go." Ryah stood up and ran up the stairs happily.

* * *

><p>Hiroshi was quiet a lot of the way back from hunting, and had been quiet throughout most of the hunting itself, other than a few curses when he missed with his spear, but silence was key to hunting. Still, she didn't like silent people; that left too much unknown, and Ryah liked to know things. "So …" she began, adjusting her grip on the spitfox over her shoulder. "… you like boarcupine?"<p>

Hiroshi shrugged with his wolflion on his back and glanced at her. "Not really. I like komodo chicken."

Ryah nodded in thought. She didn't really like komodo chicken, but she supposed she'd eat it if there were nothing else. "Huh. I hear that's nice with noodles."

"It is." Hiroshi replied. "You cook?" he wondered aloud.

She smirked. "Does a platypus bear shit in the woods? 'Course I cook." She replied amiably, using her free hand to push her hair out of her face. Her mother had made sure she cooked; nobody would want a wife who didn't cook, and she wanted Ryah to be married - because then her husband would be chief. Zuma didn't want Ryah to lead their people at all.

Unsurprisingly, Hiroshi seemed pleased by this. He suddenly stopped and looked up ahead with an expression of awe, as the trees opened up and the city filled the view. Fire of every color in a kind of tornado was spinning up into the sky. His mouth fell open and his eyes popped, and he nearly dropped his kill. "Whoa!" he exclaimed.

Ryah smiled at the sight. "Pretty, isn't it? Looks like the masters are liking the ritual." She continued moving into the city thoughtfully; she had pleased the masters herself, during her coming-of-age ceremony, with another firebender boy, at age ten. She'd eaten boarcupine that night, freshly killed by her father himself. Zuma had failed at skinning it, so Akirou had taken over. "I hope you skin your own kills." She called back over her unoccupied shoulder as a result of her thought.

Hiroshi followed after her with scoff. He didn't really know anyone he trusted enough to let skin his kills, so he did it himself. He didn't even trust his own brother to do it. "I don't trust anyone else to do it for me," he caught up to the princess and answered calmly.

Ryah nodded approvingly. "Neither would I. Don't tell anyone I said this, but my mother can't skin an animal for the life of her." She pulled an impish expression as they continued into a cluster of huts. "So where do you live?" she asked, looking around.

Hiroshi raised a hand and pointed to one of the huts on the edge of the cluster; with a red-painted handprint on the wooden door. "There." He and his brother shared a hut, but his brother was training to become a scribe, and was usually down in the catacombs. His getting married would not only bring a better cook for him, but also for Shin.

The two of them walked up to the hut and walked in; a fire pit with a pot over it was in the middle of the room, a bed was on the far side; literally just a hide mat, and around the fire pit were cushion seats. Ryah immediately sat down and moved the spitfox into her lap. She pulled a knife from her belt loop and removed its sheath, bringing the blade to the animal's skin.

Hiroshi sat down and the two began skinning and cleaning their kills.

* * *

><p>When the day was out, Ryah realized she hadn't been to see Nikko at all, but it was late and he would understand if she missed a single day; after all, he usually just figured it was a religious thing when she didn't show. Either way, he'd probably seen the dragons' fire and thought she was at a day long Ritual. As Ryah walked through the open-plan sparring arena toward her home, she heard small, tapping, running feet and yelling. She turned and saw a group of six younger kids between ages five and ten running up the stairs to the higher walls of their city.<p>

"It's a flying cowsheep!"

"No way! It's a furry dragon!"

"It doesn't even look like a dragon!"

Ryah looked up as a shadow interrupted the sunset's light over her. She found herself shouting in surprise and staring up as the flying beast took off into the sky; with the two boys from last night atop it. Ryah suddenly frowned as the beast took off even higher, and looked to the children again, who were scrambling back down the stairs and running toward her, after the flying sky bison; and Ryah was sure that was what it was.

"Look! Look, Ryah! It's a flying cowsheep!" the eldest girl, Liu, yelled at her in excitement. Ryah was about to scoff and correct them, but then decided against it; if Akirou had kept this a secret from everyone, then he had a reason for it. Also, if he'd kept it a secret from _her, _then he wouldn't appreciate her asking about what he was trying to cover up. And she didn't want to anger him.

Ryah smiled briefly, with a concerned expression. "Yeah … whaddaya know …" She muttered plainly.

"Mako won't tell us why it was in the jungle - Sai found it near the dragon-egg temple." Another child explained, a boy by the name of Fou, pointing to his friend next to him. "It's got a funny arrow on its head, he says."

Sai gave an adorable little nod of agreement, but said nothing.

Ryah jerked her head upward in an awkward nod. She'd bet anything it had something to do with those two strangers. Right now she absolutely _knew _that young bald one was the Avatar, or at the _least _an Air Nomad, though she figured it took two people to do the dragon dance. She grimaced in thought; the two of them had pleased the dragons; the Avatar and his firebending friend - most likely his firebending teacher.

"Mako." She murmured, before exhaling. "Huh. Alright, have fun." She waved, turning back from her house and heading back toward the village. She needed to speak to Mako. Mako would know all about the Avatar's visit, the sky bison, Akirou's friend, and how they were all linked, as she swore to herself.

* * *

><p>Ryah waited patiently outside Mako's hut after knocking loudly, with her arms behind her back, linked at the hands. Her eyes danced around, looking for anyone who might report to her father that she was out past her curfew, and she wrung her hands in one another nervously. She could feel fate tugging at the corners of her world, threatening to tear it down the middle. It wasn't a familiar feeling.<p>

"Mako!" she called out hopefully. "It's me!"

The elderly man hobbled to the door on shaky, aged legs and opened it with an amiable smile. He looked tired. "Hello, child - what can I do for you?"

Ryah laughed. "What are you talking about? I come here all the time."

Mako raised an eyebrow. "Oh. I was sure … your father said you wouldn't be stopping in for a while."

Ryah made a face. "Something's going on. I'm trying to figure out what it is. My father is acting really strange." She glanced sideways in thought and gave a sigh. "I came to see if I could do anything for your foreigner patient. My father mentioned him - in fact we had a disagreement over him." She shrugged up against the cold draft beginning to take the night.

Mako nodded happily. "Oh, wonderful. I need spitfox venom."

Ryah made a truly shocked expression that Mako read like a scroll. "Spitfox _venom_?" she questioned, wondering if she'd heard him wrong. "You don't mean spitfox _marrow_?"

Spitfox bone marrow was used in many of Mako's herb supplements; it worked wonders for arthritis. Spitfox venom would knock you out for hours if it got on the right part of your skin; a part where the veins were exposed, like the wrist, or the inner-elbow, or the neck. Spitfoxes spat their venom at their prey and knocked them out, and then ate them alive while they were unconscious. Why did Mako want to put the man to sleep? Then Ryah realized if Mako was trying to put the man to sleep, the man was surely awake.

"No, the man's pain is keeping him from sleeping. I've tried simple herbal concoctions, but none have worked."

Ryah nodded in understanding. "As it happens, I killed a spitfox just this morning. My mother's cooking it as we speak." She grinned proudly. "I left the venom I collected in the house, though. I was going to use it for hunting."

Mako smiled warmly. "That is a cunning idea, Ryah. You think like a true huntress."

"Thanks. I'll go get the venom now. Tell him to sit tight." She backed away from the door and tried to peer in, but saw nothing of the man. Mako nodded and retreated into the house, shutting the door.

Ryah turned back on her own path and began back toward her home at a run. She continuously reminded herself that however long it took her to get the venom, was time that man was spending in pain. She took a shortcut through the brush of the jungle and saw the light of her house at the edge of the vegetation after three minutes of continuous running. She paused to catch her breath; if they heard her breathing hard, they'd catch her and she'd get in trouble.

She settled for holding her breath - as if she were swimming underwater - and stealthily snuck toward the house. She grabbed the vines growing on the side of it and pulled herself up toward her bedroom window. She gripped the ledge and pulled herself up, turning so she was sat on it. She carefully turned and put the feet on the floor, sliding in and grabbing the small, glass lidded pot from the low unit by her bed. In the same second she'd entered the room, she was sliding herself back out. She inched down the vines and took off again for Mako's hut at a sprint, breathing hard.

Ryah arrived at Mako's hut only five minutes after she'd left, fully aware of the distance between Mako's dwelling and hers. She rapped hurriedly on the door and rocked back and forth on her feet, waiting for the elderly man to answer the door. As soon as the wooden door opened, Ryah held out the pot of clear orange venom to Mako, who took it immediately, turning and approaching his herb-crushing station, on the far side of the room.

Ryah stepped in, turned and shut the door, her breathing beginning to catch up to her. She shook her head and turned to the sound of a painful grunt. She saw a man in his late-fifties or early-sixties, muscular but portly, and short, struggling to sit up on the hide mat on the floor. She moved toward him and dropped to her knees with an unexplainable look of confusion on her face.

"Tell him to lie down. The man keeps trying to sit." Mako shook his head as he poured the venom into a small wooden bowl and lifted a basting brush, putting the brush end into the venom.

Ryah frowned. "Maybe it's uncomfortable for him to lie back." She disputed reasonably, but passionately. She looked to the man's pain-ridden face; one that she knew was usually one of soft, kind consideration and humility. His eyes were closed tightly, and his lips thinned against each other, grunts coming from the back of his throat. Ryah helped him sit up.

"Maybe. Alright, lift his wrist for me," Mako turned with the bowl and the basting brush in old, frail hands that, despite Ryah expectations, didn't shake.

The golden-eyed girl lifted up the man's arm and moved her hand up to his hand, holding his left arm out - she'd read that the left ring finger had a vein that went up to the heart directly, and so she reasoned that the left arm's veins must've therefore _also_ gone directly to the heart. The man's stiffness seemed to loosen at her gentle but deliberate grip as Mako basted the venom onto the man's wrist, bending down.

His face softened as he began to lean backwards, lethargy making it impossible for him to hold his own weight. The girl guided him back to the mat and looked down at him in concern. His eyes opened and she stiffened herself. The same golden eyes that she saw in the water, and on the scarred boy from the night before were looking at her thankfully. When he closed his eyes, they didn't leave her mind. They burnt in her head and she shut her own eyes. She lifted the fur blanket over the man and turned her head away from him. Something strange was going on, and she didn't like it.

Little did she know that fate had only just begun to unravel her destiny.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Whoa this is weird. This is my only fanfic with an OC - so far. Not enough Nikko in this chapter :P**

**Iroh is sick ! :(**

**So tired. Need sleep. Two AM. NNNNNnnnnnnghhh … REVIEW!**


	3. Beginnings

As Mako let go of what Ryah's people called the Dragon Prince's arm, Ryah glanced at it and felt her eyes widen. "Mako," she heard herself speaking, not feeling the words on her tongue. "Look!" she pointed, and then lifted the man's arm again.

On pale skin, the man's veins were clearly visible; long, black lines that were trailing from his shoulder, down into the crook of his elbow and down his wrist. Mako looked briefly, and then paused with a deep frown. "This is not good, Ryah." He shook his head solemnly.

"What is it?"

"It is the venom of a white widow spider and it kills slowly. I would say this man has, by now, less than forty eight hours to live." Mako lowered his head and put his hands together in a traditional fire-nation signal of respect, and bowed to the laying man, though he couldn't see it.

Ryah screwed up her face in a dark, pained expression. "Is there a cure? Or an antidote?"

Mako lifted his head and paid close attention to Ryah with narrowed eyes. "Why do you care so much about this man?"

The golden-eyed girl looked away before sighing. "I don't know … saving his life just seems like the right thing to do."

The healer replied with a genial nod. "There is no cure. Though a bitten man traveling with his waterbender wife to the opposite pole of his origin many years ago was healed when she bent the poison from his veins. Unless you happen to be a waterbender as well as a firebender, this man will die…" he shook his head again in pre-mourning.

Ryah frowned for a moment in concentration. "Hey, Mako … how far can a dragon fly in forty-seven hours?" she wondered thoughtfully.

* * *

><p>Ryah knew she was going to get in trouble for this simple plan. She knew the Avatar was an Air Nomad Avatar, judging by his arrow tattoos, and had taken off in the direction of the Western Air temple; that alone, in the rash princess' mind, was enough to make her think that the Avatar was hiding out in the Western Air temple, with his firebender friend. Now, the logic of her mind had decided that the last thing the Avatar would learn would be his firebending, considering the war, and the fact that not many firebenders would want to teach the Avatar how to kill the Firelord.<p>

This led her to believe that the Avatar already knew Airbending, Earthbending, and most importantly, Waterbending. She figured that the Avatar had to know a _little _about healing, seeing as he'd have to go to the North Pole to get his teacher, since the South Pole was diminished to the point of the extinction of waterbenders, and there was a healing school there for the women. And if not, then she'd have to travel with their sky bison to the North Pole to heal her unconscious new friend. She knew Mizu wouldn't survive a minute in the Arctic Circle.

"Ryah?"

Ryah froze in place and mentally slapped her own forehead. She turned in her bedroom to see her father staring at her in bewilderment. The camping pack on her bed held a change of clothes, her bow and arrows, some food for the trip and a spare supply of spitfox venom. "Hey … uh … hi…?" she greeted awkwardly, standing between her father and the pack.

"What are you doing up at this hour of the night?" he stepped closer and tried to look around her.

Ryah lifted a hand and slid a finger between her heavy golden necklace and the skin under it. "Uh … well … I was uh … going to the catacomb libraries to … study?"

Akirou raised an eyebrow and gave a sigh. "Ryah, you're a terrible liar. It's actually pathetic." He shook his head with a small laugh. "Now why don't you tell me the truth?"

Ryah smiled nervously, "That … that is the truth, though. I read that studying in the night makes you take in more information." She crossed one arm over her middle and gripped her other elbow at her side.

Akirou frowned and pushed her aside, finally seeing the pack on her bed. His face turned red and he glanced at Ryah. "You were sneaking out," he stated plainly.

Ryah hung her head. "… Yes, sir."

Akirou paused. "Why? What for?" Suddenly, something came to mind. "To see Hiroshi?" he asked hopefully.

Ryah looked up and made a face. "What? Ew, no!" she raised her hands and stuck her tongue out. "No!"

Akirou rolled his eyes and crossed his arms skeptically. "You'd better start talking, Ryah."

The princess stared up at him hesitantly. "I … can't." she admitted solemnly.

At this, Akirou understood that this had something to do with Iroh. "This is about Mako's patient, isn't it?" he groaned out in annoyance. "Why must you interfere, Ryah? Are you trying to fill a dying man's last days with grief and pain?"

His daughter bit her lip involuntarily. She hadn't thought of it that way. She shook it off; she wasn't going to allow her father to put her off doing this. "No. I'm trying to save the man's life." She crossed her own arms and eyed him carefully. "If I'm going to lead these people one day, I need to learn how to make the right choices, father. And this is the right choice."

Akirou's words were out of his mouth before he'd thought on them. "You're not going to lead these people," he stated wryly.

There was a long pause in which Ryah stared at him in confusion and he stared back at her in deliberate seriousness. "What?" Ryah ground out her voice through clenched teeth. Her hands formed fists at her sides and she felt all her muscles tighten in sync with her surprise. She showed no upset, only anger. "What do you mean? Who _will_?"

Akirou frowned on her and shut his eyes. "Your husband. Hiroshi."

Ryah's eyes widened, and her jaw slackened. She felt her hands go limp. She stared at him with bulging eyes that began to turn red. She said nothing, but Akirou replied to the silence between estranged father and daughter.

"You have been promised to Hiroshi. You need not learn to lead these people. I have relieved you of any duty to these people. You have only duty to Hiroshi." He nodded, with no shame or regret for his promising her to Hiroshi at all. This was the best thing for his people - nobody would follow a lone woman, and the dragons would surely not allow her to be leader either.

Ryah felt tears well up in her eyes and quickly swiped her hand across them, ridding herself of them. "How …" she heard her voice crack and cleared her throat, feeling a lump in it. "How could you?" she stared at him, her cheeks turning red in dismay.

Akirou didn't answer her question but seriously replied to her voice. "What did you plan to do with Iroh?" he raised one eyebrow again, looking at her like she were just another foolish young woman like the ones Zuma spoke ill of.

Ryah stared at him. "I was going to take him to the Avatar. I know he was here." She shook her head and hugged herself. "No. I'm _still _taking him to the Avatar." She bit at her father spitefully, defiance ringing out in her voice.

"And you expect the Avatar to be able to heal him?" Akirou scoffed skeptically.

Ryah's eyes narrowed and she looked away stubbornly. "Well, _your _best idea is to bury him and let him die. I figure my idea is better." She crossed her arms, turned back to the bed and grabbed up the pack. "I'm going to the Western Air temple, and you can't stop me," she pulled it over her shoulder and glared at her father defiantly.

"You're right. I am not the man you ask for permission any longer. The honor of your chastity claims that Hiroshi must travel with you." He explained calmly.

Ryah threw her arms up. "This is crazy!"

* * *

><p>Ryah approached the cave where Mizu was kept in the still of morning with her pack on her back and heart set on the sky. Something about the day made her feel nomadic. She carefully entered the cave, waltzed into the shadows and allowed a grin to form on her face as the flash of two great big golden eyes. "Hey, there, stranger!" she smiled at the animal, that slithered toward her like a snake and curled itself around her like a cradle. She put her hand on the giant beasts forehead and patted it contently.<p>

The animal gave a purr of happiness at the sight of its friend and shut its eyes for Ryah to run smooth porcelain hands over its scaly eyelid, lovingly.

"I missed you too. Sorry I haven't come to see you. I've had a lot on my plate," she marveled at the magnificent giant.

The dark purple dragon shivered with another purr, as if to say it didn't mind, but was just happy to see her.

Ryah continued to smile at the reptile as she stroked its thick, rough scales. "You get prettier every time I see you, you know that?" she cooed to the reptile, her hands running over its skin. She pulled the pack from her back and reached up to the short, stout horn of a young dragon, securing her pack to it. "I'm going to get someone important, okay? And I'm going to bring him here. We're going to take him to get help," she patted her companion.

Mizu cocked his head in curiosity, but shivered again, a signal Ryah had learnt to mean 'okay then'.

"Going somewhere?" a voice came from behind and Ryah jumped.

Mizu coiled around Ryah, like the winding of metal in a spring, his head pointed toward the source of the voice; Hiroshi standing by the mouth of the cave. Ryah exhaled and patted Mizu's body reassuringly. She addressed Hiroshi in a dark tone. "You'll get fried if you sneak up on dragons," she pointed out dryly, as Mizu began to loosen around her and she vaulted the dragon's body ending up sitting on it, eyeing Hiroshi.

"I asked you a question." Hiroshi crossed his arms.

Mizu grumbled low in his stomach, his eyes still fixed on Ryah's 'friend'.

Ryah pulled a face as she patted Mizu again reassuringly, trying to calm him. She didn't want her supposed fiancé fried to a crisp, even if she had no intention of marrying him. "I'm going to the Western Air Temple to find the avatar. I'm taking Mako's patient to see if he can be healed," she explained calmly and rationally.

Hiroshi pulled a face. "And your father gave you permission for this?"

Ryah scowled. "I'm told I no longer need his permission. He's no longer my keeper."

Hiroshi nodded in an awkward jerk of the head. "He told you. You're not pleased."

The princess ground her teeth. "I'd be happier if I wasn't being traded off like cattle. So I'm leaving. To clear my head."

Hiroshi frowned hard at this. "When do you intend to return?"

Ryah paused and drew her shoulders up. "It'll take as long as it takes," she told him seriously, sliding of Mizu's body and approaching him. "We'll discuss the other matter when I get back."

"When _we _get back," he corrected her as she got to his side.

Ryah glanced sideways at him and stopped in her tracks. "What?"

"I have to come with you. To protect your honor before the wedding," he recited formally, as if he'd practiced this phrase many times over in his head. Ryah imagined he probably had. How was it that the men could have up to twenty wives, and the women were damned to be faithful in this tribe of theirs? Ryah cursed herself for questioning her own customs.

Ryah opened her mouth to protest, but immediately shook her head; the man was a good hunter, he could make a fire, he cooked somewhat, and she figured if worse came to worse, she needed to learn to be able to stand his company. "Fine. You can come," she turned and poked him in the chest. "But this is _my _quest. You are on _my _team. I am not on _yours. _Got it?"

Hiroshi smiled and nodded sharply.

"Good." She jerked her head up as a nod. "Hope you're not afraid of flying," she smirked, glancing back to Mizu, who seemed to purr with the same kind of smirk on his reptilian face.

* * *

><p>Ryah knocked politely on the wooden door of Mako's hut, hoping to catch him before he left for morning prayers at the temple, with the other priests and priestesses of the tribe, and whoever was up early enough to join the prayers. She glanced down at her clothes and grimaced; in her regular attire, she figured she'd get cold flying at a speed that could get to the Air temple before Iroh, as she had learnt his name was, died. She came to the realization she wanted to wear clothing that covered up more of her skin, considering Hiroshi was to be her husband if she didn't have her own way.<p>

The wooden door opened and the kindly old man answered with a tired smile. "Good morning, Ryah. You've caught me just on my way out," he noted, stretching his hands. She heard the joints in his hands creak and crack as he did this. "What can I do for you?"

Ryah smiled brightly. "I'm here to take Iroh to a healer. On Mizu," she added, just to be more specific.

Mako frowned at first, but eventually his aged face gave way to a proud, somewhat happy smile. "That is good news. Come in." he opened the door wider to allow her entry to the hut, stepping out of her way and turning his eyes toward the sleeping man, and his traveling companion, who was sat down on the floor beside him.

Ryah walked in and turned to look to Iroh, but her eyes first settled on the man sitting cross-legged at Iroh's side, and confusion crossed her face before she remembered that Akirou had mentioned a traveling companion. "Hello?" she asked, wondering if the guy was asleep or meditating, or something. She had trouble distinguishing which nation he was born to by the brownish garb he wore.

The man on the floor looked up and smiled briefly. "Oh, sorry."

Ryah waved a hand to say she cared not. "Are you Iroh's friend?"

The man nodded carefully. "Uh, kind of. I kind of stumbled across an injured old man and … well, he needed help." He shrugged half-heartedly.

The golden-eyed girl smiled brightly; she suspected she'd get on well with this boy. "That was good of you; especially to bring him all this way. I want to take him to a healer not far from here."

The man looked to the sleeping Iroh while he spoke again. "Everyone's told me he's going to die … you think he can live?"

"If I get him to a healer." Ryah assured him, crossing her arms, feeling a cool morning breeze rush into the hut. After a pause, Ryah introduced herself. "I'm Ryah, by the way."

The young man nodded calmly. "I'm Sensu. Corporal, if you like … but-"

Ryah nodded to him genially. "Earth Kingdom?"

Sensu replied unenthusiastically, "What's left of it."

The princess bit her lip and then shook her head. "Well, we'd best get a move on if we want to get to the Western Air temple by nightfall." She knelt beside the old man on the hide mat and used a thumb to push up his eyelid to check again if his eyes were the same as hers. It was insensitive, but she figured it passed as a medical check, so she could do it without Sensu questioning. "Help me lift him up." She instructed the corporal.

Sensu reached over Iroh and gripped his brown-clad shoulder, slowly lifting him up into a sitting position on the sleeping mat. Ryah took his other arm and the two slowly pulled themselves, and Iroh, to their feet. The man was a fair bit shorter than the both of them, so they stooped somewhat so his feet touched the ground. His eyes flickered open and he got his feet under him in confusion, giving a guttural grunt of pain.

Ryah saw the equally confused look on Sensu's face and decided she'd have to be the one to talk Iroh through this. "Iroh? Hey, hi, nice to meet you … long story short, you seem to have been bitten by a deadly white widow spider, so we're taking you to the Avatar, at the Western Air temple to see if he can heal you. If not, then we'll take his bison up to the North Pole. But first, you need to help us get you to my dragon."

Iroh's flickering eyes turned to Ryah and he squinted at her in some unexplainable stare that she couldn't decipher. He grunted again, dropping his head and feeling his legs waver under him. It was alright, though, because Sensu and Ryah held him up.

"That's fine, Iroh. Just help where you can." Ryah told him warmly, her grip on the old man tightening protectively. She was neither letting this man die, nor letting him come to any more harm. She understood that this was a man who would do the same for her if she were an injured stranger he'd wandered upon. She suspected that was why Sensu had helped him.

Ryah glanced over Iroh to Sensu's skeptic expression, and her look asked the meaning of it. He glanced aside awkwardly and then looked back to Ryah with saddened expression. "The Avatar is supposed to be dead."

Ryah rolled her eyes. "Yeah, so is this guy," she motioned with her head to Iroh as a rebuttal.

"And dragons are supposed to be extinct …"

"So is the sun-tribe."

Sensu managed a tiny smile. "You're not easily put off."

"Nope." Ryah grunted as she held up Iroh's weight. "Come on, help me out here, lazy." She smirked at Sensu over the man they carried.

* * *

><p>Nikko wondered how he got into situations like this. His face was pushed down into the stone floor outside Mizu's cave, and some crazy fool was holding it there with a hunting boot and holding his hands behind his back. He wondered how Mizu could allow this to go on without doing anything, but then he was reminded that Mizu was Ryah's beast and as a result had the same kind of sense of humor. Mizu would probably laugh if he could.<p>

"I'm only going to ask you again once, intruder!" the crazy hunter idiot that had ambushed him yelled at the top of his lungs. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Nikko grumbled into the stone, trying to come up with a suitable answer, but a retort was all that came to mind. "And then what? You're going to wave that little sword around?"

"Hiroshi! What are you doing?" came a panicked yell.

Nikko exhaled in relief at the sound of Ryah's voice. Hiroshi? Nikko would've frowned if he'd been able to with his face in the stone. Ryah hadn't mentioned a boyfriend … he shook away the thought; the guy had to be, like, five years older than Ryah and himself. It was impossible.

Hiroshi let go of Nikko in his bewilderment. "You _know _this outsider?" he strained his words.

Ryah drew up her shoulders; she was _so_ going to get in trouble for this later. "Yeah, I know him. His name is Nikko and he's too stupid to _stay out _of the city like I told him." Ryah grumbled in annoyance, before turning her voice to the earthbender, "What are you doing here, you idiot?" she asked, still helping Sensu move Iroh toward Mizu.

Nikko slapped his hands to the floor and pushed himself up, glancing darkly at Hiroshi. "Looking for _you_. You disappeared for a whole two days, I figured I'd check if you were still, you know, _alive_."

Ryah rolled her eyes with a whisper, "Why does everyone keep thinking I need to be protected?" before she glancing cautiously back to Iroh, who had fallen fully unconscious somewhere between Mako's hut and the cave. She let out a loud whistle that gave Mizu the cue to slither out of the cave so she could secure Iroh to him. Mizu snaked out of the cave, leaving room for all five people that had now gathered to climb on, unsure as to who was going with. She and Sensu began hoisting Iroh up onto Mizu's magnificent neck.

Hiroshi crossed his arms. "And who's this guy?" he motioned to Sensu. "Another _Earth Kingdom _friend of yours?" he scowled.

Sensu answered for himself. "I'm the guy that carried this old man for hundreds of miles to a tribe of forgotten people who were _supposed _to be able to help him, but weren't." he gestured to Iroh, as Ryah and Mizu worked together to secure him down by tying a rope around Mizu's undercarriage and over Iroh's legs, so he was able to sit up, but was at the same time he wasn't going to fall off if he couldn't hold on.

"Sure they were." Ryah turned reasonably. "I'm helping him. See?" she motioned to where Iroh was secured down, leant against Mizu's elevated neck. She marveled at her intelligent beast.

Sensu smiled, and Nikko pulled a confused face. "Where are you going?" he asked innocently.

Ryah answered with her back turned to him, as she gave Sensu a leg up onto the dragon, so he could sit in front of Iroh. "Western Air temple. I'm going to find the avatar, see if he can help our friend here." She gestured to Iroh calmly. "He was here the other day - that's what that dragon ritual was for."

Nikko paused. "Oh. Can I come?"

"NO." Ryah and Hiroshi both said at once. Ryah turned to look at Hiroshi, as if to question why _he _got to decide who came along on _her _quest to save a life.

"Why not?" Nikko asked, still quite innocent, and not offended in the slightest.

Ryah thought for a moment and replied simply. "Because I'm trying to get there _fast. _And four people is already a lot for Mizu to carry and go _fast,_" she pointed out intelligently.

"But I'd be worth it." Nikko smirked happily.

Ryah looked over her shoulder. "What?"

"Well, as it is, you have a non-bending hunter, a sick guy who may or may not be a firebender, a …" Nikko looked to Sensu. "Well, I don't know what you are, but I'm just saying, I'd be handy to have around. An extra bender is extra protection."

Ryah grunted in exasperation. "Again with the protection!" she threw her arms up in annoyance. "I'm not a baby! I'm a _master firebender!_ Does that mean nothing to you people?" she glanced to Hiroshi, and then to Nikko in boiling irritation.

Nikko nodded in understanding, thinking out a better excuse. "I … I can roast boarcupine the way you like it … ?" he offered hopefully.

Ryah stood straighter and glanced from side to side shiftily. "Alright, fine, you can come," she scowled in defeat, motioning to Mizu. "Climb aboard."

Hiroshi slapped his own forehead as Nikko climbed aboard and Ryah put Iroh's arms around Sensu's torso, tying his hands there so he would sit up. Sensu's hands took hold of the dragon's white stripe of a mane, holding on tight. It reminded him of a trip he and his family had taken when he was a boy to a brand new kind of park, what they were calling a theme park, put together with both earth- and waterbending skills, when he'd been holding on tight on a - what was it called, a roller coaster? - ride, before it had begun. Sensu glanced aside, missing his family for a moment.

Ryah turned to face Hiroshi, who was still scowling. "Agni, Hiroshi, will you just get on? It's not a big deal."

Hiroshi, continuing to scowl, approached the dragon and tried his best to ignore the grumble it gave at his closeness, climbed on between Nikko and Sensu, grabbed on and held tight. Ryah climbed on in front of Nikko, checked that her pack was still attached and then grinned. "Hold on!" she yelled to her passengers, before grabbing hold of the dragon's mane and clutching tight to her dragon with her legs. She tilted her head back in some kind of rushing ecstasy and pursed her lips, a whistle so loud it rang in Nikko's ears escaping them. Sensu was sure it reminded him of the steam trains he'd encountered in the Fire Nation, under cover after escaping from a war prison.

An enraptured laugh jumped from Ryah's mouth as the dragon exploded from the ground so fast that Iroh woke up and began clutching tight to Sensu, despite not knowing him all that well. At the sound of the girl's strangely euphoric laughter, he peered around Sensu to see a pale arm at the front, with vines and leaves up ahead, though clouds were already beginning to bother his vision.

"Ryah, slow it down!" Nikko yelled at her in a panic.

"No way!" she turned her head and grinned at him, before exploding in an almost sick laughter. She leant forward as a cue for the dragon, which begun a nosedive. "Wee!"

Nikko screamed and felt his sweaty hands slip from the mane, hands flailing around and only finding Ryah in front of him. His arms grabbed her and wrapped around her desperately, her laughter echoing in his head. "You're crazy!" he screamed, squeezing his eyes shut.

Mizu scooped in the air and began flying upward, and Ryah yelped out again on cloud nine. "Wee!"

Iroh wondered if this was just a hallucination from the venom in his blood.

"Ryah, stop! STOP!"

And with that, Iroh forced his eyes to stay open so he could watch her yelp in crazy laughter for just a few seconds more. He felt the dragon under him purr as it flew, and heard Ryah's friend shouting, screaming for the beast to slow down. The laughter was innocent, despite what the girl was laughing at, and her partnership with the dragon most undeniably rivaled that of the Avatar and his bison. Iroh's mind turned to the Avatar and his face pulled into an expression of surprise; if they were going to the Avatar, they were going to Zuko. He steadied himself as the dragon resumed a straight flight path, imagining the kind of family reunion this would be.

* * *

><p>Katara approached the expanse of open space where Aang and Zuko usually trained. They'd returned the day prior with their 'dragon-dance' performance, and were now trying some other bending forms. Katara, despite not trusting Zuko, had to register that they seemed to be learning together, rather than Zuko teaching Aang, the same as she and Aang had learnt together.<p>

"Aang," she called out as she approached.

Aang finished his form, bowed to Zuko and turned to Katara with a smile. "What's up?" he stretched his back, looking around for the upper half of his attire.

Katara gestured out to the sky. "Uh, the moon?" she noted. "Come on, I thought we'd start training early today and take advantage of summer. You look like you need to cool off anyway," she let her eyes fall on the paling blue color of the sky with a smile.

Zuko gained her attention with her voice, using his shirt to wipe at the sweat on the back if his neck. "The Sun's not down yet," he pointed out. "I say when his firebending training's done for the day."

Katara rolled her eyes. "I wasn't talking to you. And don't use your shirt to wipe yourself. You're not the one who has to wash it. Use a _towel," _she glanced around and spotted the towel on the boulder nearby. "There's one right there," she pointed in annoyance.

Aang, having been reaching up with his shirt to wipe his own neck, immediately put it down and smiled nervously. "Sorry, Katara, we're not done yet." Aang shrugged apologetically. "You can watch until we're done, though, if you want."

Zuko glanced from side to side shiftily, wanting to protest, but saying nothing. Hopefully Katara would decline.

"No thanks." Katara eyed Zuko malignantly, "I'll go get started I guess. You know where to find me, Aang." She turned and waved over her shoulder.

Zuko rolled his eyes and then took a stance again, "Alright, start again. It's a simple turn. Just loosen your Achilles tendon-," focusing on his own steps, he executed the move, finding his skills to be rusty. He hadn't bent in a while; he supposed it might take a while to get up to speed; considering he'd limited his bending in Ba Sing Se, and then had no reason to bend back home, and not wanting to practice in the courtyard, lest Azula show up and mock his skills for being lesser than hers. Sure, there had been the battle in the catacombs, but that had tired him out after so much _not _bending.

He looked up to see Aang jumping into the motion with the flexibility of a child, and punching out the flame skillfully, "Like that, Zuko?"

Zuko bit back the urge to become petty, though he was somewhat disappointed; first Azula, now Aang. "Yeah. Like that."

He heard Katara laughing a ways off. He snapped his head to the sound of her voice and saw her turn to force down a smile.

"What's so funny?" he snapped suddenly.

Katara shrugged, biting off the end of her laugh. "Nothing. Just reminded me of something." She waved it off, before taking a step away from them.

At the sound of something she'd never heard before, she jumped, tilting her head up, just the same as Aang and Zuko did. The loud, unexplainable rushing of wind shot over their heads, over the temple; it was accompanied by a roar that caused her to grab hold of the stone pillar beside her, wondering if the building was about to collapse. Aang and Zuko exchanged glances and Aang yelled over the noise.

"I didn't think we upset them or anything!"

"Me either!" Zuko yelled back, racing over to his shirt and vest and begrudgingly pulling them on over the sweat on his upper body.

Aang grabbed what was left of his monk's robes and pulled on the single-sleeved re-tailored shirt, leading the way back into the temple. The other two followed, reluctantly side by side, but allowed him to lead them through the bison nursery and out into the courtyard around the fountain, where Sokka, Toph, Haru, The Duke, Teo and Momo had jumped to their feet and were chattering in excitement.

"What the heck was that?" Toph shouted at Aang in exasperation, on her feet despite that they were injured.

"I have a feeling we're about to find out!" Sokka yelled in reply, though she hadn't been addressing him. "I think we should hide. Make the place look deserted." He told them authoritatively, as the noise died down, and in the distance he heard it approaching again.

"Good idea." Aang nodded, reaching out for the fountain and bending the water onto the fire; he wondered why there was a fire going at this temperature, but didn't voice his wonder. "Come on, guys!" he yelled out, retreating to the back of the large courtyard and slipping behind a demolished wall.

The others ducked and dove behind cover, Toph with Sokka's help, and the others the speed of light. Even Momo took cover with the Duke, who hid him in his shirt, holding his breath. Katara grabbed Zuko, who was apparently terrible at hiding and dragged him behind a thick pillar of stone. She muttered some curse at the 'idiot firebender' and pressed her back to the pillar beside him, holding her breath as the rush of wind grew back again.

In a different world, Ryah smacked her dragon on the neck to signify a place to stop. "Mizu, halt!" she called out in high speech. The dragon's speed decreased like the way a cart stops for a man laying in the road and the reptile hovered into the empty space a few tens of feet from a fountain Ryah found tranquil and inviting. She wondered for a moment where all the people were, but then decided to finish her thought once Mizu had stopped fully.

She swung her leg over Mizu and looked about. She involuntarily tilted her head up to admire the wonderful paintings of bison and monks and bending. She tilted her head toward the back of the room, thinking she'd heard something, but fixing her eyes on the mural of three bison.

"Wow." She heard herself breathe in awe. "I read that the monks had an aesthetic … but this is beautiful." She blinked in amazement.

Nikko climbed off of Mizu, clutching his stomach. "Yeah, gorgeous. I think I'm going to puke." He groaned in discomfort. "Do you understand what _slow down _means?"

Ryah rolled her eyes, her eyes narrowed at the space around her. "Shut up, Nikko." She heard her voice snap darkly. She ran out onto an open expanse of burnt, charred marble flooring; this had once been the avatar's firebending lesson stage. "No." she whispered to herself.

"No what?" Hiroshi called from Mizu, climbing off and standing not far behind Nikko.

"_No, _the Avatar is _gone_!" Ryah ran back her eyes darting around wildly. "NO!" she growled out in confusion. "Now what?" she turned to Nikko with a desperate, fierce shout.

"Hey, calm down, Ryah-," Nikko reached out to touch her shoulder.

Ryah smacked his hand away and turned away from him. "_Dammit!_" she formed fists at her sides, igniting them in frustration. Her eyes fell on the steaming fire and she growled out, her flames flickering blue at the ends. She calmed herself and allowed the flames to disintegrate. She hung her head and put her hands on either side of her face. "No!" she cursed under her breath.

"Well, I guess it's the North Pole, right?" Sensu tried helpfully.

Ryah shook her head in defeat. "Mizu can't take the temperature up there. He's cold-blooded." She rubbed at her eyes. "It's getting dark." She looked up to the sky, before looking to Mizu again. Maybe she could make it home before nightfall so her father could tell her she had failed once again, and should just let a man do all her work for the rest of her life.

Sensu shook his head and untied Iroh's hands in front of him, before swinging himself off of the dragon, his hair wind-matted and his body drained of energy from the speed the dragon employed. He began working at the knot that secured Iroh to the dragon. The old man had fallen back into unconsciousness.

A few feet away, Zuko shuffled slightly around the thick pillar his back was pressed to and saw a strange-looking girl with her back to him, with strange tattoos and sun-tribe attire that left little to the imagination. He saw he turn and approach a pile of purple scales, and he registered the purple as a dragon. He frowned; Ran and Shao were supposed to be the last two dragons in existence. And why did she want the Avatar? And what was up north that she needed?

He continued watching and felt his eyes bulge in his head as she helped another man lift his uncle from the dragon. Another one, with similar tattoos to the girl began unpacking a bag that had been secured on the dragon, and produced a sleeping bag that he set out. To his surprise, the girl and the man set Iroh down on the sleeping bag, and she looked down at him in concern before rubbing at her face again in frustration.

Zuko moved to go for them, to go for his uncle, but Katara grabbed his arm. He glared at her warningly but she glared back seriously; he couldn't blow their cover. He snatched his arm from her and carefully walked out, almost soundlessly. "Who are you and why did you follow us," he demanded seriously, causing the four conscious intruders to whip around and get into stances.

* * *

><p><strong>FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! Nah, no fight. No authors not cuz i have like, eight seconds to get off.<strong>


	4. Healing

The girl with the strange tattoos got into a basic fire-bending stance, immediately recognizing the guy she'd seen trapped with the Avatar in the temple of the Dragon Dance. "We came looking for the avatar," she explained calmly, her brows down in case she needed to fight him. He was a fire-bender too - he had to be. He was probably the Avatar's fire-bending teacher to boot.

"Free your prisoner or I'll be forced to attack you," Zuko ground his teeth, staring down the Sun-tribe princess.

Ryah raised an eyebrow and then pulled a face. "Prisoner?" she repeated in shock, "You think we brought him all the way here … as a _prisoner?_ No! No, we came looking for help for him! How dumb are you?" she dropped her stance and shook her head at the scarred teen.

Nikko pulled a face. "Ryah, maybe you shouldn't piss him off-,"

"Look," Ryah gestured to the wounded man leaning on Sensu, "He's injured. We came here looking for a healer-," and then a firebolt shot out from the scarred teenager's hands and forced her back, putting her hands up to block the flame. The fire dissipated in little tufts around her and she glared at her opponent. "Or," she snarled angrily, "We can do it that way."

Zuko moved to his left, circling wide, one hand outstretched, the other held back for defense. "Put him down and leave if you want to escape with your lives," he threatened darkly.

Ryah bared her teeth, vexed. The fire-bender before her shot another blast in her direction and this time Mizu curled in front of her, his scales protecting her lower half from the fire. His neck arched up and spat a flash of fire at his master's opponent, causing him to step back carefully. Ryah vaulted over Mizu's body and shot a blast right back at Zuko.

Zuko pushed the fire aside and in one fluid motion turned the defense into an offense, swiveling on one foot and punching a fireball at her. She split it down the middle with a strategically careful slice and ran toward him, a fire-whip forming in one hand. Ryah snapped her whip at him, and he ducked low, out of its path, reaching up and slicing through it. Without her bending, she kicked one foot out and knocked him in the backs of the knees.

The others ran out from their hiding spots to be of assistance.

Zuko fell forwards and rolled onto his back, shooting fireballs at her from his position on the floor before jumping to his feet. Ryah brushed off his fireballs, one of them whizzing past her head and singeing the ends of her bangs, and took a step back, swinging her arm around her and sending a wave at the banished prince. He split this wave to his protection and moved to strike back.

Except someone beat him to the punch. Toph stomped the ground and the earth under the tattooed girl rose up, capturing her feet and ankles in it. She gasped as she sank down to the knee in the earth, falling forwards and catching herself on her hands. She stood as straight as she could, shortened by her shrinkage into the ground, and looked to see the scarred fire-bender still circling, slowly and carefully.

Nikko ran toward Ryah to free her, but stopped halfway on the dirty glare he received from the one who'd just fought his friend.

Ryah growled out angrily. She wasn't going to prove her father right. She could get out of this, and she didn't need any help either. She'd figure it out. She watched as a group of people in different national attire approached, and eyed the one in the earth kingdom clothes. This was the one who had her trapped. "Let me go! He's the one that attacked me!" she reasoned irritably.

Katara crossed her arms and looked at Toph. "She has a point," she pulled a face, before addressing the older girl trapped in the stone. "Why are you here?" she queried calmly.

"We came looking for help, for the old man!" she yelled angrily, annoyed at the way the younger girl was talking down to her.

Toph pushed her brows up. "She's telling the truth," and she pushed the girl up to her feet again, releasing her from the earth.

Ryah brushed herself off and shot a glare at Zuko, before turning toward the dragon, who was still up with its head raised to attack. "Calm down, Mizu," she told it irately, walking toward where Sensu held Iroh's weight. She called over her shoulder, "His name is Iroh. He's been bitten by a white widow spider. Our healer said he only had forty-eight hours, and that was about forty hours ago."

Ryah turned and gazed at them all in turn. She spotted the Avatar immediately, and then his water-bending teacher - who was younger than Ryah herself by about two years, and then another water tribe boy, then the earth-bender girl, followed by the hotheaded jerk who'd attacked her, who opened his mouth to speak.

"We know who he is. He's my uncle."

Ryah paused and reached up to scratch her head. "Ah. Well, that explains why you tried to kill me, then." She grabbed the old guy's other side and helped Sensu get him closer to the Avatar and his companions. "We came here looking for a healer. Failing that, your bison is a lot more likely than my dragon is to make it to the North Pole."

Katara frowned hard and approached them, "That's me - I'm a healer. We should get him to the baths; I'll have more water to work with there. I'll show you the way." She led them into the temple, and they disappeared into the building, only the rough murmurs of their conversation over heard.

As much as Zuko wanted to follow, he stayed with the others, staring down the two left standing near the dragon. Katara could keep an eye on his uncle, and watch that fire-bender girl, too, in a room completely to her advantage. He just hoped that other guy helping carry his uncle wasn't an earth-bender - he didn't know if Katara could take two benders at once. That girl was a master - she'd prove challenge enough without an accomplice.

One of them, with a low, dark brown ponytail and a medium complexion, raised a hand. "Hey. Nice to meet you all. I'm Nikko."

Aang smiled at this straightforward greeting. "I'm Aang. This is Toph, and Sokka, and that's Zuko. And Katara just went in with your friends to help Iroh," he explained amicably.

Nikko nodded thoughtfully. He opened his mouth to reply when Hiroshi snapped out, paranoid.

"Don't try anything! We won't be fooled by your fake hospitality!" he drew his sword and pointed it at the Avatar across the courtyard.

They all stared at him for a moment, before Nikko shook his head. "Sorry about him - I'm proud to say I don't know who he is. I can't speak for him, but I don't particularly want to get burnt, maimed or crushed today. I'm not going to start any trouble. I just came because of Ryah."

Hiroshi scowled miserably, putting his sword away.

Zuko stood straighter. "Ryah. That's your friend's name?" he gestured to where Katara had disappeared with the fire-bender girl. "I've heard that somewhere before."

"Well, if you visited the sun-tribe, you may have heard something about her. I wouldn't know; I don't know how that place works," Nikko shrugged.

Hiroshi cleared his throat and entered his melodramatic mode. "There's a good chance you heard about her. She's the chief's daughter. In other words, the princess. And my fiancée," he shot Nikko a smug little smirk, eyes narrowed to slits.

Nikko's jaw dropped. "What? You're like, twice her age!"

Hiroshi frowned. "You know nothing about politics."

"What the hell does politics have to do with it?"

"Oh-kay," Toph threw her arms up, "Time-out, okay, strangers?" and then she turned to Sokka, "Snoozles, take the princess' knight in shining armor to go get some meat." Toph then turned to Aang, "Twinkletoes, take - what was it, Nikko? - Take him to go check out the all-day echo chamber, okay? I'm going to go help Katara, and Sparky, you can stay here and babysit the dragon."

Zuko shook his head. "I'll help Katara - he's my uncle. If there's anything I can do, I should be there-,"

Toph groaned and opened her mouth to retort.

"Mizu doesn't need babysitting," Nikko reached out and put his hand on the giant serpent's forehead, between its reptilian green eyes.

Toph raised an eyebrow; "No child was ever mauled by a liondog that wasn't dubbed completely safe. You know that saying?"

Nikko's calm expression changed and he thought about this for a minute. "Good point."

"Come on," Aang cleared his throat, "I'll show you the echo chamber."

Sokka and Hiroshi had already disappeared on the prowl for meat. Toph and Zuko argued for a little longer before they finally came to the simple fact that Zuko was Iroh's nephew and that beat 'curious troublemaker' any day. Toph sat down on a rock and paid close attention to the dragon. Things hadn't exactly gone well that time she'd been babysitting Appa, she remembered.

* * *

><p>When Zuko got to the baths, the tattooed girl was leaning against a wall with the one who'd helped them carry his uncle in, and Katara was tending to Iroh in one of the baths, looking frazzled and unaware of pretty much anything going on around her. Zuko approached and she barely even noticed. When he knelt down to ask how his uncle was doing, Katara told him it was coming slowly and that if he planned to hover, could he please do it on the other side of the room.<p>

Near the wall, Ryah wondered what Nikko and Hiroshi were up to. Guaranteed, they'd want to keep them supervised - who wouldn't? She just hoped none of them were as jumpy as the one with the scar. True, they had showed up with his uncle bound, but they'd only tied his hands to keep him from falling off Mizu! Agni, some people were so touchy. Either way, it didn't matter. It all ended the same - whether Iroh lived or died, Ryah would have to go home and get married like a good little princess.

The idea was daunting.

"Dammit," Katara breathed, hanging her head and taking a long breath. Sweat had formed on her brow.

Zuko jumped at this from where he stood behind her. "What? What is it?" he swallowed hard.

Katara glared over her shoulder at him. She was about to snap at him when a soft little whimper came from the old man under her palms. She gasped quietly and returned her blue eyes to Iroh, ignoring the headache knotting in her head. She said nothing, but paid close attention, even leaning down to see if she could hear anything.

"… -Suka-," Iroh's voice broke off with a mild cough that he seemed unable to fully get out.

Katara guessed he'd meant to say 'Zuko', before lifting her healing hands from him and grabbing the soaked garbs of his clothing, having put him in the water without stripping him, wanting to work on him as soon as possible. She tugged to get him up, but he was heavier than she'd initially thought and she only managed to get him up when Zuko reached to help.

Once Iroh was held in a sitting position he coughed weakly and then fell back into unconsciousness. The two lowered him back to the water and Katara watched him for a moment before sighing heavily and getting back to work. Zuko stood up again and resumed his hovering, unaware he was just putting unneeded pressure on Katara. Minutes passed. And then hours did.

"You guys don't have any food, do you?" the girl with the tattoos spoke up from the other side of the room, about three hours after she'd arrived here.

Zuko looked up and glared at the girl with eyes narrowed into slits. The others were probably back by now with whatever they'd hunted. He glanced back to Katara, working tirelessly on his uncle's inner elbow, intermittently drawing tiny black amounts of poison from his bloodstream every now and then. It was slow work. She had bought him another two nights at the least, but she continued to work, even as it was getting dark outside. It was time to light candles if she planned to work any later.

Katara stopped working on Iroh and checked his temperature. The water he was lying in had gone cool, and it had brought his fever down somewhat. The blue glow of the water melted away and she motioned to Zuko to help her get his uncle up so they could put him in a room. As they hauled the aging firebender up, Zuko heard Katara's knees crack after so long sitting on her own legs, but she said nothing, so he guessed he wasn't supposed to either.

Ryah and Sensu followed them to the room they took Iroh to, which was right next to Zuko's, convenient for the banished prince to hover and obsess over his uncle. Katara used her bending to dry Iroh off as best she could, and they struggled, with Ryah's help, to get him onto the bed. Zuko disappeared to his room and returned with his blanket for his uncle.

They left the room, Zuko reluctantly leaving his uncle to sleep. As they walked, Katara peeled a strand of hair sticking to her face from her skin and glanced to Zuko. She didn't trust the firebender, but he wasn't about to do anything while his uncle was injured; he needed her to heal Iroh, and she had that to her advantage.

"Maybe he can sweat some of it out while he sleeps," she told him as they walked.

Zuko glanced away from her, golden eyes on his own boot tops as he moved. "Is he going to live?" he asked, his voice a low rasp.

Katara hesitated. "I don't know. It's not going to be a fast recovery."

Zuko just nodded and said nothing else. Ryah paid close attention to them - the waterbender was just like the scrolls had told her one would be. Cool, deliberate, compassionate even beyond her own resentment toward the scarred guy. And it was obvious she didn't like him. Zuko, wasn't it? And he was the Dragon Prince's nephew, so he was actually _Prince__Zuko,_Fire Lord Ozai's son. Ryah smirked, glad she had spent so much time in the libraries back home.

They got out into the main plaza, where Aang had taken it upon himself to combine what firebending he knew with his waterbending to start cooking for everyone. He'd gotten the rice going, leaving Sokka, Hiroshi and Nikko to argue over how the boarcupine roasted on an open flame. Katara took over with the cooking, and Ryah sat down between Nikko and Hiroshi, waiting for food.

"Hey," Nikko greeted cheerily, "How was the healing session?"

Ryah rolled her eyes, "It was a healing session, Nikko - I wasn't exactly watching jugglers. I was literally just standing around for three hours. How about you? What did you do all day?" she glanced to the Avatar discreetly, and then looked around for Mizu to be sure he was faring well. Mizu was curled up in a figure-eight around two pillars, watching the cooking fire.

"The Avatar showed me the all-day echo chamber, and then we played Pai Sho for a while, and then when that got boring we hung around in the great library- You should see it, Ryah, it's filled with all sorts of books talking about our Zen theory! It was like the monks read my- Ryah?"

"Huh?" Ryah looked up from the marks on her palms. "Sorry, I wasn't listening," she smiled sheepishly at Nikko. "Guess I'm tired."

Hiroshi reached out and put his hand on Ryah's back, "Don't worry, princess - we'll retire soon, and then tomorrow morning we'll return to the sun-tribe."

Biting back a snap, Ryah shook her head. She suddenly felt too tired to argue with anyone. She was hungry, tired, stressed, and lost in her own thoughts. The sun-tribe princess needed no reminder of her impending engagement, or the fact that she no longer had a say in her own life, or those of her people. She'd spent her whole life preparing to lead her people, just to have it all snatched out from under her.

"Here ya go, Princess - a boarcupine _delicacy_ cooked just for her majesty," the blind one mocked, extending a plate of rice and meat to her.

Ryah frowned and took the plate, choosing to ignore the comment. She wasn't going to start trouble now. Ryah put it to Hiroshi the fact that everyone knew who and what she was all of a sudden. She'd come here with an excuse to get away from her life at home, only to have it follow her. She was starting to eat when the Avatar addressed her.

"So … Ryah, right? Can I ask about your … tattoos?"

Ryah put her plate down and looked at the Avatar, trying her best to remain diplomatic. "What tattoos?"

Some of them sniggered. "The ones all over your arms and legs - the vines, and the lotuses."

"They're not tattoos," she answered solemnly, "I was born like this. Stare if you want," she returned to her food, remembering the girls back home; the ones that made fun of her markings, her rank, the fact that she looked nothing like her parents … she didn't want to go home right now. She wanted to run away, or hide.

The Avatar's troupe fell quiet before the Avatar just uttered 'oh', despite wanting to ask how both the princess and her earthbending friend Nikko had similar markings. Eventually they all finished eating and the waterbender's brother led them to rooms where they could sleep - Ryah noted that the rooms they gave were the furthest from Iroh, and everyone else. Ryah hadn't expected them to trust her, but it still hurt.

She was pleasantly surprised with the size of the windows in the room and that she could see Mizu from her window. At a whisper, Mizu looked up, purred, and then went back to his sleep near the dying embers of the cooking fire. The sun-tribe princess fell on the bed and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought.

She dreamt of Technicolor pillars of flame.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: For those who think this is a self-insertion, it's not. I really just couldn't think of any other name for Ryah. I wish I were as cool as her. Firebending kickapow! Sokka ftw. Yar-har-har and a bottle of rum. This is me filling the authors note with pointless crap. So yeah, things are going to get more complicated as time goes by.**

**Next chapter on its way!**

'**Fanservice may vary'. 'Batteries for sexytiems not included'. 'For children ages 3+, choking hazard due to fangasms'. 'Ships sold separately'.**

**REVIEW!**


	5. Sharing

Zuko rolled out of bed and startled himself awake, out of a fitful, restless sleep. He lay on the floor for a while, considering sleeping there a little later, before he climbed to his feet and rubbed at his good eye groggily. Glancing out his window, he saw the pale blue morning sky. It couldn't be long past daybreak. Nobody else would be up yet. That was good; he could bathe in peace.

Zuko grabbed a rich red towel from his few belongings and left his room, down the hall toward the flight of stairs leading down to the main level. Had he stopped in his uncle's room, he'd have noticed something amiss and freaked out, as he was wont to do when it came to his uncle.

As he crossed the courtyard, he heard muffled someone offering a greeting, and looked to see if someone was awake already. He was usually the first awake around here, but with another firebender around, he supposed he should be on his guard as soon as he was awake.

"Hey - what are you doing up so early?" someone asked tiredly - Zuko guessed it was the earthbender guy, Nikko.

A short pause ensued. "I'm always up this early," came a dry reply; undeniably the princess.

"Oh," Nikko yawned, "So, uh … you didn't actually mention you had a fiancé. We've known each other for ... I mean, I kinda thought I'd know about any boyfriends and stuff …"

Ryah growled low in her belly. "I couldn't have if I wanted to. My father sprung it on me just the other day."

This time the pause was a lot longer. Zuko frowned and hid in the shadows, leaning around a pillar to see the princess sitting with her legs dangling over the huge canyon under the temple, and the earthbender standing not far behind her. Nikko then sat beside her.

"You don't sound like a blushing bride to me," he pointed out obviously, leaning back and propping himself up on the heels of his hands. "You … don't love him?" Nikko tried awkwardly.

The princess drew in a long breath. "I don't even _know _him," and then she laughed a humorless laugh and turned her head toward her friend, "That's not even the worst part."

Nikko drew in a mocking gasp. "Worse than having to marry a pompous jackass?" he tilted his head curiously. The princess laughed again, and this time it was sincere.

"You probably won't get it," she then made a face out at the huge canyon.

Nikko answered with a modest, "I can try."

Ryah smiled at him; Zuko could tell from his spot. She sighed and shook her head. "I studied and trained my whole life to lead my people, Nikko. I was everything I needed to be to look after them. You can make a bunch of jokes about me being a princess, but it's not as fun as you think. There's a lot of complicated stuff to know about, or else you get blindsided."

Nikko kept nodding, taking in the information. Zuko frowned in thought, and it brought to mind his time as crown prince of the Fire Nation. She was right about all that stuff; if you didn't know what you needed to in monarchy, governors and other nobles could get the upper hand on you, and people like Azula got to make jokes that didn't exactly make anything easier.

"But I was _good _at all that. I had a proud father, and my people liked me, and trusted me to lead them. It's not a sexist thing, either; we've had female chieftains before, like my great-grandmother Huyana," Ryah paused again, probably to collect her thoughts, "and I thought my father was proud of me. I thought he was okay with me taking the headdress."

Then she said something that felt like a kick in the guts to Zuko.

"But I was wrong," she drew her legs back up and put her chin on one of her knees.

Nikko spoke then, in as sympathetic a tone as any. "What do you mean? Just because you're getting married-,"

"My father is going to give the headdress to Hiroshi, Nikko," the princess cut her friend off. "He's giving away what I spent my whole life working for. He doesn't think I can handle it."

Zuko's face somehow found itself softening as he listened. When she dropped the hard-shell act, the princess was actually just a little girl who wanted her father to be proud of her. She reminded Zuko of himself a few weeks ago; except she was giving into it. She would go back to her city and let that Hiroshi guy take her crown- ... er, headdress.

The two got up and began walking back toward the staircase to the upper level. "What about your mom? Can't she talk your dad down?" Nikko was asking.

Ryah scoffed, obvious not amused with that. "My mother wouldn't toss me a piece of bread crust if I was starving. I was wet-nursed by a woman whose baby had died, when I was born, and she still doesn't look amused when she puts food down in front of me. It's because I'm a girl. She was so sure I was going to be a boy, and then I wasn't. Things would've been easier if I _had _been a boy."

The next thing the earthbender said nearly made Zuko want to smack his own forehead.

"Is the headdress really all that important?"

He'd just ruined any chances of cheering his friend up. What, had this guy been dropped on his head as a baby or something? What part of 'I studied and trained my whole life to lead my people' didn't he get?

Ryah rounded on him and stared. "How could you say that?" she yelped angrily, before growling at him as if to say something else, but finding herself unable to put words together with how utterly shocked and appalled she was. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, turning and storming toward the stairs furiously.

The earthbender stood where he was for a while and then sighed heavily. "I just asked!" Zuko heard the guy talking to himself; "People _can _actually survive without leading an entire culture of people, you know!" he called after her.

"Screw you, Nikko!" Ryah yelled back, power walking away from her friend.

Nikko grumbled something and then walked away, sulking.

Zuko, now thoroughly amused, moved toward the baths, shaking his head and forcing back tiny chuckles of laughter. He stepped through the large archway into the huge bathroom and began untying his belt, his towel swinging from his hand as he did so. He shrugged off his vest into his hand and untucked his undershirt from his trousers, looking up as his upper clothes came undone and his chest was exposed to the humid air.

And his eyes fell on the bright blue glow of healing water.

Katara was healing his uncle. Zuko blinked at the waterbender for a moment, who hadn't even registered that he was here, and he wondered when she'd gotten up. She was usually the _last _person out of bed in the day. He swallowed and then cleared his throat to gain her attention.

The waterbender startled and looked up, looking disheveled and exhausted, the glow of her hands dissipating. "Zuko," she breathed in surprise, before she registered who he was and then her eyes set like stone, coldly glaring at him. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" she snapped irritably.

Zuko's good brow shot up. He could go on a tirade about how she was occupying the baths now and he couldn't have a bath until she was done; and she wouldn't be - knowing her, she'd spend the entire day healing Iroh and nobody would get to wash up, and everyone would start smelling - but Zuko really didn't feel like it. "What are you doing up so early? When did you get up?" he blinked at her.

"I didn't."

"Huh?"

"Didn't go to sleep," she answered brusquely.

Zuko's eyes widened and he sputtered for a moment. "What? Why not?"

"My bending's better at night," she answered sharply, and returned to healing his uncle. "And he needs a lot of healing," she stated, as if that fact made it okay to just not sleep. Then she glanced darkly at him, "Sorry if my being up interrupts your _alone __time; _too bad you won't be able to sit around plotting how to capture Aang," she glared for a moment.

Zuko shook his head, her attitude finding a way to tire him. "I just wanted a _bath. _And how did you even get him down here on your own?" he frowned.

Katara just looked back to Iroh, her hands working this time on his chest, probably on his heart. "I managed it," and then she added, "Go wash up in a river or something."

Zuko scowled. "Maybe I'll do that."

"Great."

"Fine."

"Go ahead, then."

"I will!" Zuko snapped, before storming away.

* * *

><p>"You know, Princess," Toph strolled toward where Ryah was standing, looking out over the huge ravine, "maybe it's a good idea to put on some more clothes," the blind earthbender munched on an apple in her hand, stopping behind the girl with the markings and putting her hands on her hips.<p>

Ryah turned and eyed the girl. She tilted her head curiously. "You're … blind," she blinked in confusion.

"So I've heard," Toph smirked.

Ryah smacked her lips, confusion written on her face. "No, I mean … how can you tell what I'm wearing?" she plucked at the golden belt of her short maroon shorts, giving herself a quick once-over and then realizing she was severely underdressed compared to all the people around this place.

Toph pushed her brows up and swallowed a mouthful of edible matter, lifting one foot off the ground and using her free hand to point to it. "These babies. That's how. I can feel tiny, tiny vibrations in the earth; like your heartbeat, and your breathing patterns. And I can tell that besides your underwear, you're only wearing shorts, some leather sandals, a whole lot of gold bracelets and armbands, and a sleeveless midriff thingy. I don't think that thing even counts as a shirt, actually, sister."

Ryah gawped, her face turning bright red.

"If that's the way all your tribe's girls dress, I'm sure Twinkletoes and Sparky had a pretty … _pleasant__ … _visit," Toph teased.

The princess suddenly crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously. "I don't have any other clothes," she snapped dryly, tossing her head irritably.

Toph's blind eyes widened. "Seriously?" she threw her apple core over into the ravine. "Well, we need to fix that. There are boys here. Maybe your guys are used to you showing off your assets like that, but knowing Snoozles, you'll get ogled if you don't cover up a little."

"Ogled?"

Toph waved it off. "Come on, Princess; let's get you some decent clothes."

* * *

><p>Katara stopped working on Iroh as the sun climbed the sky and Sokka came in whining that he was hungry. Her own stomach was growling too, so she decided to take a break. Sensu helped her get Iroh back to the room they'd allotted for him, and then Katara stepped out into the courtyard, where the blinding light of the sun caught her offguard, bringing her to rub at her eyes, and the dark circles growing under them.<p>

As she put a plate of rice, fried vegetables and some meat from the night before, in front of each of her friends, she noticed that Toph and the Princess had disappeared. "Has anyone seen Toph?" she asked, looking around curiously, as Aang and Zuko sat down to eat after their morning firebending session.

"Which one is that?" Nikko asked with an equally curious look on his face.

Aang answered this one immediately. "She's the one that trapped your friend in the marble yesterday," he smiled mischievously.

Nikko and Aang laughed together like a pair of urchin twins, as Hiroshi interjected, "I haven't seen the princess either, since the other day."

Zuko considered telling them he'd seen her that morning, but that would peg him for an eavesdropper, and in all honesty, he wasn't one. So he'd listened in on _one_conversation; that didn't make him an eavesdropper. "I'm pretty sure they can _both_handle themselves."

"Against each other?" Katara and Hiroshi said at the same time, before exchanging glances, just as two shadows, one shorter than the other, were cast over where they were eating.

They all looked up to see Toph standing beside the red-clad princess, who was dressed a lot more modestly than she had when she arrived … in some of Zuko's clothes. The aforementioned was immediately overcome by a sense of his privacy being invaded by them going into his room without permission, and his items being stolen for the use of a person who wasn't even going to be here for long.

"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Zuko got to his feet, his voice snapping sharply and dryly.

Ryah blinked for a moment and then shot a look at the blind girl. "You said these were spare," she raised an eyebrow, plucking at the long, faded red shirt that came just past her hips.

"They are," Toph shut her eyes in a self-satisfied way, before addressing Zuko, "Those are never going to fit you again, Sparky."

Zuko scowled. "That doesn't change the fact that they're _mine._"

Toph rolled her eyes, "She told me herself she doesn't even _own _any other clothes from what she came here in; you know, the glorified underwear? Consider it repercussions for burning my feet, okay, Sparky?" she lifted one of her feet and pointed at it to illustrate her point, even though her feet were completely healed by now.

Zuko continued to scowl, and sat back down, returning to his meal. Toph punched the princess in the arm and moved off to sit between Aang and Sokka. Ryah stared at the girl for a moment, rubbing her arm, and then sat down between Hiroshi and Nikko, keeping her eyes away from either of them; Hiroshi because she liked him considerably less now that he was her fiancé, and Nikko because he was a total prick.

After the silence became awkward, Sokka spoke up conversationally. "So," he began amicably, "I thought there were just firebenders in the sun-tribe. But you're wearing green," Sokka shot a pointed look in Nikko's direction, lifting a hand to the curve of his jaw suspiciously. "What are you, like … half fire nation, half earth kingdom?"

Nikko raised an eyebrow at the boy in the water tribe colors. "Uh … no," he answered calmly, "I'm just a nomad that decided to stay in one place," he smiled pensively.

"What do you mean?" Aang piped up, "Where were you born?"

Nikko shrugged. "I was born in an Earth Kingdom city called Bao-Ling - it's in the northwest. My parents were upper class, nose-in-the-air types, if you get what I mean. They have everything they could ever want; but when I was born, they had even more. A cleric told them I would have special abilities, or something, because of my marks. They put too much pressure on me to learn earthbending, and in the end I just ran away."

Aang pulled a face. "Yeah," he murmured thoughtfully, before he sat a little straighter. "So you two are completely unrelated, but you were born with almost the same markings?" he glanced between Nikko and Ryah, both of whom nodded assertively. "And you just somehow … managed to wind up in the same corner of the world?"

"That's one weird coincidence," Sokka exclaimed in awe.

Aang shook his head. "I don't believe in coincidences like that, Sokka. Things don't just _happen _like that."

"What do you mean? Of course they do."

"No, they don't," Toph spoke up, "Have you guys ever thought of just how many 'coincidences' happen in our favor? I mean, what were the chances that a solar eclipse would fall the very same year the Avatar returned? And what were the chances of that Hama lady being in the town we happened to wander into while hiding out in the fire nation? Isn't that just a little _too _convenient for it all to be a coincidence?"

Katara spoke up from where she was eating. "Sounds to me like fate. Or destiny," she pointed out curtly.

Aang smiled at Katara and then looked to Ryah and Nikko. "Exactly. Maybe it was destiny that brought you two together."

Ryah suddenly turned bright red and glared at the Avatar. "Not _together _together," she snapped awkwardly.

Nikko lifted a hand to the back of his neck and laughed nervously. "Yeah, that would be just silly."

"No," Ryah glared at Nikko this time, "You know what's _silly? _Your _face,_" she shot him a dark and hateful look, before returning to her food.

Toph smirked. "Ouch," she commented, before adding. "That joke was worse than the ones Sparky tells; but still. Ouch."

Then Katara suddenly looked up and over her shoulder, back toward the staircase. Sokka started talking to Hiroshi about his technique with a spear and how it could improve by just turning his wrist a little to the left as he stabbed, even though the sun-tribe warrior was a good five or six years older than Sokka was. Katara raised a hand to the air, effectively silencing them all, her ears straining to hear something.

Then she choked a gasp and got to her feet, running for the stairs up into the living quarters; toward Iroh.

Zuko, Sokka, Aang, Nikko, Hiroshi and Sensu all wore looks that expressed their awe of the superiority in women's hearing; women were always the first to hear something, be it gossip, a snapping twig, the hiss of a forgotten pan on a flame, you could always rely on a woman to hear something before you did. This expression was a mix between surprise and extreme concentration.

"I think he's awake!" they heard Katara yell out as she scaled the first few steps.

Much to Momo's elation, most of them got up to run after her, leaving their food behind.


End file.
